Pension point

Sir: I have just read Kate Andrews’s article on junior doctors’ pay (‘Sick pay’, 15 April). While not wishing to get drawn into the rights or wrongs of their strike action, may I point out that in respect of the NHS pension scheme, for the sake of balance, the employee’s pension contribution also needs to be taken into account? The employer may well pay a 20 per cent contribution, but a junior doctor on a salary of either £29,000 or £37,000 (both figures quoted in the article) will pay 9.8 per cent of salary with a consequent reduction in take-home pay.

John Etherington

Wilsden, West Yorkshire

Coach trip

Sir: It was good to see mention of the Speaker’s state coach in your leading article (‘Reign or shine’, 15 April). The coach, which was retired in 2006, has been restored but languishes at Arlington Court in north Devon, where it is part of a national collection of vintage coaches. It would be excellent if it could be used at the coronation, as it was in 1953, as well as at Charles’s wedding in 1981. Even if there are technical reasons why it should not perform its traditional function, surely it is time it was returned to its proper place, the Palace of Westminster, where it could be seen by a wider public?

Simon Gordon

Harbertonford, Totnes, Devon

Word on the streets

Sir: Your leading article did not point out that street party applications for the coronation had to be in by a far earlier date than was required for the late Queen’s Jubilee. This would account for some of the numeric disparity. Local political bias is pertinent perhaps.

Terence P. O’Halloran

Stainton by Langworth, Lincolnshire

Love over law

Sir: I suppose that Dan Hitchens would label me ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’, although I am uncomfortable with such easy labels. His article (‘The lost shepherds’, 8 April) seems very much to favour those he would label as ‘conservative’. No doubt most of them would also be uncomfortable with such labelling. On the specific issue of same-sex relationships he, and many others, would regard my position on this as ‘a departure from the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scripture’; a craven attempt to ingratiate ourselves with the zeitgeist. I do not believe that it is any such thing. Rather, we seek to tease out, for today’s world, what it means to do to others what we would want them to do to us (Matthew 7:12). We recognise that throughout history most societies have caused pain, isolation and even suicidal thoughts to those for whom same-sex attraction is part of their very being. The church meekly proved a faux-theological justification of something it had never felt the need seriously to consider. Frankly, that was inexcusable, and still is.

This seems to me to be a classic case of putting ‘law’ first and forgetting the much deeper command to love, to nurture the best in people, and allow them to thrive as fully rounded beings. As St Paul puts it: ‘The letter kills, but the spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3:6).

Revd Canon Timothy Kinahan

Helen’s Bay, Northern Ireland

When deterrence fails

Sir: Paul Wood makes some excellent points (‘Shadow play’, 15 April). Chinese diplomacy in brokering the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is indeed a stunning upset but, as he rightly concludes, one that may have the net result of making all-out war in the Middle East more likely. His analysis raises a fundamental question: how did we get here? The answer surely lies in the West’s abject failure, since 2003, to deter either Iran’s nuclear programme or the expansion of its regional influence via proxies. Iran remains, in the words of the US diplomat Dennis Ross, an exporter of drones, missiles and failed states, to which we can also add state-directed lethal activity, including against the UK. The Iranian regime has never been more emboldened to continue this activity. The lessons of the Cold War are that deterrence only works if it is conducted in a consistent manner and led by responsible states that are possessed of and prepared to use meaningful sticks. None of that applies in the Iranian case; western attention may understandably be trained elsewhere, but for as long as the Iranians see no cost attached to their actions, the threat of another Middle Eastern war will only increase.

Jamie Lyon

London NW1

Head case

Sir: Bernard Cornwell’s recollection of letters he received in response to the publication of his book The Winter King (‘Letter from America’, 8 April) included one which stated: ‘I have read your book and regret to tell you it is mistaken, I was Guinevere in a previous existence.’ This reminded me of the story of a visitor to the Tower of London who approached one of the Yeoman Warders, announcing she was the reincarnation of Anne Boleyn and asking to be directed to the scene of her execution. His response was kindly but brief: ‘I thought you would know that.’

Graham Keating

Hale Barns, Greater Manchester

Unaccompanied minors

Sir: I read with interest Mary Wakefield’s article about overworried parents (‘Help! I’m raising a snowflake’, 15 April). In 1952, I went from my prep school in Kent with my best friend to stay with his parents in Cologne. Two little 12-year-olds, travelling on their own by train, ferry and then another train. Parents at both ends of the journey perfectly content to let us do so. I vividly remember being violently seasick after eating a Dover sole on the boat to Ostend.

Today such a journey is unthinkable, and no doubt the parents would be publicly castigated if not criminally charged as well. How happy and lucky we were.

Robin Hunter-Coddington

Chiswick, London

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