Abnormal

Sir: Just read Rod Liddle’s column ‘The new normal’ in a word ‘BULLSEYE’.
Be careful with that spelling if you print this!
Neville Parker
Paradise Waters, Qld

Raised eyebrows

Sir: I had been a rusted on reader of The Spectator for decades, when The Spectator Australia came upon the scene.
At first it seemed like a country bumpkin poor relation of The Spectator, as I complained to the former editor, Tom Switzer.
The Spectator Australia has become the highlight of my reading week. The columnists you now have, David Flint, John Stone, Donald McDonald, Neil Brown, the English lawyer/academic whose name I always forget (Allan?) and others are very fine columnists. The choice of diarists sometimes causes my eyebrow to raise a fraction.
Imagine then, how it grieves me to encounter the sorts of grammatical lacunae in your columnists which I would defy you to find in The Spectator.
On another topic of which both The Spectator Australia and I are equally fond, I am surprised that neither you nor The Australian availed yourself of the delicious irony when Gillian Triggs, addressing students at (I think) the University of New South Wales, described herself as a “truth teller” and implied that her demise was the consequence of speaking truth to power. If only she had!
Hugh Northam
Melbourne, Victoria

Irrational EU

Sir: James Forsyth’s otherwise excellent piece on Brexit talks (‘Britain’s winning hand’, 26 November) suffers from the flaw of most British analyses of the EU: the presumption that the EU is a rational actor. If that were so, Greece would not be in the euro, Europe’s borders would not be guarded by Turkey, and David Cameron would have returned from his talks with a deal enabling the EU to keep one of the world’s most successful countries in the union. The recent EU history of perversity and intransigence suggests that whatever aces Theresa May holds, she should prepare to walk away from the table as empty-handed as her predecessor. Fortunately for Mrs May, a successful Brexit does not depend on the EU, which will only grow weaker with time, but on productive relations with the rest of the world.
Max Kaye
Bath

Unlucky for some

Sir: While failing to get to sleep last night I worked out that Donald Trump will be the 13th president and Theresa May the 13th prime minister of the Queen’s reign (counting Wilson once). Triskaidekaphobics should be worried. Perhaps we all should?
Neil James
London W1

Lock ’em up

Sir: Rod Liddle’s article on the ‘cushiness’ of prisons (‘Prisons should be nicer places? Nonsense’, 26 November) brings to mind one of those email jokes of a few years ago. In it, the author recommends that care-dependent pensioners be sent to prison, where they would receive the attention and care that befits their proper dignified status. This would provide 24-hour supervision, security, top diets, good facilities and, of course, the very best medical attention. (It also recommends that prisoners be transferred in turn to the ‘care’ of our official retirement retreats.) Is there a better win-win situation around?
Eric Sciacaluga
Bournemouth, Dorset

Cycle rage

Sir: Sitting in yet another recently devised traffic jam care of TfL, I looked at the empty bicycle lanes beside us and wished ‘No Khan do’ (26 November) could have been written before the mayoral election. Sadiq Khan may be today’s Blair, but knowing that he is ‘quietly cancelling a scheme to reallocate road space to cycling’, his majority would have been larger by two.
Oliver Wells
London SW1

Fuming

Sir: If Andrew Gilligan thinks cycle lanes reduce air pollution (‘No Khan do’, 26 November) he should get out more. Most often the cycle lanes are empty while alongside, in their reduced lanes, cars and vans spew out their fumes in the now stationary traffic.
Barry Winkleman
London SW3

Badge of pride

Sir: The foundation of Vermin Clubs became a very popular Tory pastime in 1949 (‘The Spectator’s Notes’, 19 November). Many constituencies had them. The badges — sold for party funds — adorned lapels at the party conference that year. (One of them, which ended up in Ulster, is in my collection of memorabilia.) Churchill, who hated Bevan, did not share the general enthusiasm; he pressed for action against his old adversary in the courts. But nothing could dampen the ardour of the party’s shock troops: the Young Conservatives. They shouted Attlee down with cries of ‘Vermin’ at a meeting in Leicester at the 1950 election.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords, London SW1

Double gaffe

Sir: Oh dear! If Dear Mary’s potential Guards officer (26 November) still does not know that an ‘Old Guards’ tie should be a ‘Brigade tie’, his future — sadly — remains in doubt.
Lord Remnant
Henley-on-Thames, Oxon