Copping out

Sir: Both the Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Andrew Billings and your recent correspondent John Pritchard are partly right (Letters, 16 and 23 March). Policing has gone wrong for two reasons.

First, the massive cuts in staff instigated by Theresa May as home secretary resulted in a large number of the most experienced officers leaving. Even the replacement of these officers under Boris Johnson took time and could not make up for the loss of experience. Secondly, the inspection regime under the Inspectorate of Constabulary fails to address the crimes that matter to the public. During the years I was PCC for the Thames Valley, I made household burglary, theft, violence on the streets and rural crime our priorities. That was what the vast majority of the public wanted. We would then get castigated by the Inspectorate for lack of effort on such nebulous things as diversity. What communities want above all is security in their houses and on the streets. The Inspectorate forgets that, and many chief constables seem delighted to abandon proper policing.

Anthony Stansfeld

Kintbury, Berks

Marley and me

Sir: It’s not often I find myself in agreement with Rod Liddle, but the day has come. He has articulated what so many music (especially reggae) fans have long believed, but never dared declare: that Bob Marley is ‘perhaps the most overrated songwriter in history’ (‘The greatness of Steve Harley’, 23 March). Songs such as ‘Three Little Birds’, ‘One Love’, ‘Turn Your Lights Down Low’, ‘Is This Love’ and ‘Iron Lion Zion’, are so bland, banal and puerile –both musically and lyrically. And they’re not only overrated but also tediously over-played on Radio 2 and Greatest Hits Radio.

While we’re on the subject of overrated songwriters: I see your Bob Marley, and raise you Freddie Mercury. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ doesn’t make up for the likes of ‘Bicycle Race’, ‘We Are the Champions’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’. I’d like to know which other overrated songwriters Spectator readers would nominate.

Rose Collis

Seaford

What fools these mortals be

Sir: Lloyd Evans writes, inter alia, of gender-swapping in modern productions of Shakespeare (‘As you like it’, 23 March). The daftest example – and they are legion – was the 2018 Hamlet at the Globe. Ophelia was played by a 6ft man, her brother Laertes by a woman a foot shorter. There didn’t seem to be any advantage in this casting, though the Guardian was all for it.

Tom Stubbs

Surbiton, Surrey

A criminal law

Sir: Lucy Hunter Blackburn’s story (‘Last words’, 23 March) should make everyone in Scotland more than uneasy. Humza Yousaf’s divisive Hate and Public Order Act is more in keeping with the Third Reich or Soviet Union, both of which encouraged informers. I also wonder if Yousaf’s call to ‘wipe the Tories off the map’ should now be considered a hate crime?

Doug Morrison

Cranbrook, Kent

Dutch treat

Sir: It is always pleasing to read about Johan Cruyff, the greatest footballer many of us saw in the flesh (‘Total eclipse’, 23 March). But while Sam McPhail is right to say Cruyff’s Ajax team changed the way football is played, he is wrong to suggest the AC Milan team which walloped Ajax in the 1969 European Cup final represented the grim face of the old order. That Milan side was led by Gianni Rivera, at the time the most handsome inside forward in the world. It was Milan’s other team, Internazionale, which preferred to lock the door, on the instructions of their coach, Helenio Herrera.

Nor is McPhail correct to say Cruyff ‘was never the most athletic player’. Brian Clough, the most remarkable of all English managers, called him ‘the human Catherine wheel’. And Cloughie was rarely wrong.

Michael Henderson

Bamford, Lancs

Loos news

Sir: David Mitchell laments Britain’s lack of public toilets (‘Letter from Japan’, 23 March), but as a council employee once employed to clean them, I can understand why so many were closed down. Apart from the cost of cleaning and maintenance, we were forever faced with mindless vandalism: smashed toilets and sinks, disgusting graffiti, damaged plumbing – and plenty more besides. They were also a focal point for cottaging, drug-taking and drug-dealing, as well as a hangout for drunks and miscellaneous undesirables. Unless the toilets were monitored all day – adding to the cost – they were health and safety hazards of the worst kind.

The council, constantly throwing good money after bad, gave up and introduced a far better scheme. It negotiated with local businesses to allow the public to use their existing toilets for free. This was a win-win situation. The toilets are often more hygienic, and a percentage of the users stay to provide custom for the business.

Mark Graham

Milnthorpe, Cumbria

Plane speaking

Sir: Keith Miller’s comment that ‘real pressure is when you’re in a Spitfire with a Fokker up your arse’ (The Turf, 16 March) reminded me of a similar tale. A Battle of Britain pilot was giving a talk at a prim girls’ school. ‘There I was in the clouds,’ he told them, ‘when suddenly these two Fokkers appeared right behind me.’ The headmistress hurriedly assured the girls that a Fokker was a make of aeroplane. ‘That’s right, ma’am,’ replied the ace, ‘only these fokkers were in Messerschmitts.’

Paul Kirkham

Farnham, Surrey

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