Major mistake

Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that he was instrumental in establishing the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland, for which Tony Blair is perhaps given too much credit. Moreover, it is difficult to name any of Major’s successors who didn’t leave No. 10 without black marks on their record. Ranking PMs is something for history.

Clive Thursby
Hindhead, Surrey

Mother knows best

Sir: It is almost unheard of for me to disagree with Rod Liddle, but I take issue with his argument (‘Childcare: an inconvenient truth’, 25 March) that ‘daycare is not terribly good for children’ and that women who do send their children to it feel ‘horribly torn’ by the pressure to be both career women and full-time mothers. While I don’t doubt there are many ‘progressives’ who see childcare as the means to gender parity, as a mother of two who has recently lost her job, my main concern about finding another one is not to continue to climb the career ladder, but to be able to afford the fees for my two-year-old son who thrives at the local nursery three days a week.

With pleasure, I watch him walking in without giving me so much as a goodbye glance. Motherhood without staff is relentless and exhausting and I am a much better mother to my son with his being away from me a few days a week – possibly even a nicer person, as my husband asserts.

Sophie Law
Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire

Teeing off

Sir: Charlotte Eagar is spot on (‘Not safe for work’, 1 April). People in their fifties are not a bunch of natural slackers. Most of us want to continue working, but for the reasons Charlotte cites, many aren’t able to.

I got lucky and, aged 55, was given a job at Lloyds Bank when they needed help after the financial crisis. It was the most demanding and fun job I had since working for Mrs Thatcher and John Major at No. 10. Having been given that chance, I am still working part-time aged 69. I support The Spectator’s drive to get older people back into work, but please pay attention to Charlotte’s thoughts as to why they can’t. We’re not all loafing around on the golf course. Many older people would like to work but are denied the chance. Please keep on campaigning for those chances.

Dominic Morris CBE
Woburn, Bedfordshire

Religious equality

Sir: ‘On the positive side, he is the first Muslim leader of any country in the western world,’ says Alex Salmond (Diary, 1 April) about Humza Yousaf, the new First Minister of Scotland. Yet his rival candidate Kate Forbes was vilified for being a Christian.

Eva Tyson
Dalgety Bay, Fife

Bad Hare day

Sir: In his Diary (25 March), David Hare states that Adelaide Writers’ Week was under attack for hosting two Palestinian writers who ‘unsurprisingly had made disparaging remarks about the occupation’.

The writers he refers to are Mohammed el-Kurd and Susan Abulhawa. El-Kurd has described Zionists as having an ‘unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood and land’ and ‘kristallnachting us in real time’. Abulhawa has called Volodymyr Zelensky a ‘Nazi-promoting Zionist’. These ahistorical, deliberately offensive comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany and the reference to Zelensky’s Jewish ethnicity cross the line from criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism. It is not surprising that major sponsors sought to distance themselves from the Adelaide festival.

Adrian Steele
London SW17

Local time

Sir: I completely agree with Lucy Holden regarding old men’s pubs (‘Local heroes’, 1 April). I’m 67 and love them for the same reasons: their erudition (yes, really), safety and urbanity. Where I live in leafy Bucks there are none; only a pastiche try-hard or three, full of the young, in and around new-money Beaconsfield.

My favourite old man pub is in London: the Hornsey Arms, where the regulars are all of a certain age. The pub is comfortable and genuinely cheerful, and the staff are a true delight, who – the real acid test – know how to pour Guinness correctly too.

Michael Wingert
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

But is it art?

Sir: While waiting for a train at Carlisle, I decided to pass the time with a coffee and a copy of The Spectator. But before I could open it, my eye was caught by the sight of two men preparing a brand-new piano for installation on one of the platforms. It came equipped with castors, which obviously pose a risk on a train platform, so their first task was to remove them. They eagerly set about this with a club hammer, and before I had the opportunity to suggest unscrewing the castors, they had caused a large crack. The opportunity to intervene having passed, I opened my magazine, only to read about the 1960s craze for piano destruction art (Arts, 11 March). Ever since, I have been trying to decide whether the acts I witnessed should fall into the category of hopelessly botched job or high art.

John Higgon
Dumfries, Dumfries & Galloway

Marriage blessing

Sir: The grace and happiness in Jeremy Clarke’s final paragraph last week brought tears to my eyes (Low life, 1 April). May their marriage bring him and Catriona even more joy in the days to come.

Cessa Moore
Hereford