Joe Shmoe

Sir: Your piece ‘Not so special’ (Leading article, 8 July) was right. Joe Biden doesn’t like us and a brief 45 minutes with Rishi Sunak last week doesn’t change that. In Saudi Arabia last year, Biden compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with Britain’s past in Ireland. This was outrageous – what about the US historical treatment of Mexicans, Cubans and Filipinos, and Biden’s friendliness towards IRA terrorists? Britain enjoyed excellent relations with the US under Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton, all of whom had Irish ancestry, and it is self-indulgent and a dereliction for this President to make his chosen personal background an issue, as he does.

Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with the US through all the major conflicts of the 20th century, save Vietnam, and has long been the US’s most reliable ally. In Ukraine, it is Britain that the US has been able to rely on, not the EU or Germany or France, and certainly not Ireland, which is ‘neutral’. Biden’s stance over British policy in Ireland has been misguided and ignorant – and he is testing the lifelong Atlanticism of Britons like me. The EU’s customs border in the Irish Sea breaks the Good Friday Agreement as much as any Irish land border would.

Gregory Shenkman

London SW7

Serving notice

Sir: In an otherwise most interesting article on the game of padel, your correspondent William Skidelsky is incorrect in saying that the game was invented in 1969 (‘Anyone for padel?’, 8 July). Although certain modifications may have taken place in the intervening period, my partner and I won the padel mixed doubles title on board the Holland-Afrika Line ship Bloemfontein on a voyage from Southampton to Cape Town in September 1957. The prizes, I recall, were a small Holland-Afrika inscribed plaque to each of us and a bottle of champagne, available at that time in the first-class saloon bar at a cost of six shillings per bottle.

Antony Johnson

Mapperton, Dorset

Into the red

Sir: Matthew Parris is right to fear the chilling effect on free speech which a Keir Starmer government would have (‘Don’t write off Rishi’, 15 July). However he fails to point out that the Conservatives have been doing Starmer’s job for him for 13 years. They are obsessed by the Online Safety Bill and the urge to hand sweeping powers to the Chinese-controlled WHO in case of a future pandemic. And now we learn that CCHQ has cancelled a Conservative councillor for quoting the Bible in support of his objections to Pride month. At this rate, Starmer’s administration will only need to stage a mopping-up operation.

Richard North

Via email

Beyond dense

Sir: Lionel Shriver argues in her column (‘The unspeakable truth about housing’, 1 July) that scarcity of accommodation inflates prices and that increased numbers in the population magnify the problem. It is relevant to the problem to look at the levels of population density in different regions of the UK. England, with 439 people per sq km, is second only to the Netherlands (503) in density, Europe-wide. Within the UK, the most recent available figures show that the north-west is the most densely populated region (526, above the figure for Netherlands) while the south-west is the least densely populated region (240). If the influx continues at anything like the present rates, these densities might affect where the newcomers are housed.

Mallory Wober

London NW3

Last words

Sir: A comment by Charles Moore in last week’s issue (Notes, 15 July) encouraged me to write. He wrote, apropos the wonderful memorial service for Jeremy Clarke, that ‘we columnists wonder, in dark moments, whether our readers actually exist’. Jeremy’s wife Catriona told us at the service how much it meant to Jeremy, in his last years especially, that readers wrote and told him of their deep regard for his writing (beautiful) and his honesty (humbling). So I thought I ought to come out of the reader closet and tell Charles Moore that his words are the first I read in The Spectator when my copy arrives. They are always measured in tone and full of sound sense.

It is too late to write and tell Jeremy Clarke how wonderful I found his column each week, so this note is the next best thing, along with being able to pay my respects at the superbly organised and moving service you arranged. A deep bow to Fraser Nelson for his tribute at the start of the service and for making sure that we the readers, as well as Spectator staff, had the opportunity to acknowledge our debt to Jeremy.

Alex Stewart

Cambridge

A fitting farewell

Sir: Thank you to everyone at The Spectator who contributed to such a fitting memorial for the late Jeremy Clarke. It was wonderful to meet so many fellow readers paying tribute to a man we loved as a friend, yet few of us had met. We couldn’t have been the only ones to choke back tears as Catriona gave her poignant eulogy and spoke of their snatched moments of joy, such as dancing together in spite of Jeremy’s paralysis. While celebrating this man of words, we thought Jeremy might have been pleased to note the impeccable grammar of Spectator subscribers. Behind us, a gentleman asked about the slight delay in proceedings: ‘For whom are we waiting?’

Lauren Mappledoram and Andreas Strongolou

London N10

To watch a recording of Jeremy Clarke’s memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields, go to www.spectator.co.uk/memorial