State of the nations

Sir: My spirits were raised by your stirring defence of the forthcoming royal visit to America (‘Britain’s Trump card’, 14 March). Its contemporary importance can be viewed in the light of Charles Moore’s Note (same issue) that the remaining hereditary peers have just been removed from the House of Lords. The monarch has thereby become the only person with a part in our legislature by virtue of inheritance, a situation bound to encourage those with republican instincts. Their tired old question will be resurrected: why can we not elect our head of state? The answer will be evident in pictures from the White House. The hereditary principle has provided the United Kingdom with King Charles III; unrelieved democracy has given the United States President Donald J. Trump.

Francis Bown

London E3

Testing, testing

Sir: Elizabeth Howard’s letter raises important concerns about screen time in education (14 March). Unfortunately it also contains a factual error. Ofqual has not proposed that up to 50 per cent of assessments should be conducted on screens. Our recent consultation, ‘On-screen assessment: developing a regulatory approach’, sought views on how Ofqual should approach regulating on-screen assessment – not on any specific proposal to increase its use to a set proportion of exams.

Our approach is cautious and we are mindful of the concerns raised by your correspondent. Under the proposals, the four exam boards delivering GCSEs, AS- and A-levels in England would be allowed to introduce up to two new on-screen specifications each, subject to Ofqual accreditation. The most popular subjects – those with more than 100,000 entries nationally – would not be permitted as on-screen exams at this stage. The consultation is now closed and we will publish the outcome later this year.

Sir Ian Bauckham

Chief regulator at Ofqual

Coventry, CV1 2GN

On the nose

Sir: For many years, I have felt rather sorry for myself for never having a single sneeze. Repetitive sneezing – from a minimum of a dozen to over a score – seemed an embarrassingly extreme affliction until I read of poor Patrick Webster’s ‘several hundred outbursts per day’ lasting for 35 years (‘Notes on… sneezing’, 14 March). Our modern medicalising tendency has led Revd Morris to discover he suffers from ‘misophonia’, as I have learned I suffer from ‘sternutatory spasms’. Identifying this has proved to be strangely reassuring. Let us hope that my condition never occurs during one of his sermons, should I find myself among his congregation.

Ian Mycroft

Leamington Spa, Warks

Talking rubbish

Sir: Anthony Horowitz is right – the UK has a problem with litter that other developed countries don’t have (Diary, 14 March). Here in Oxford, with a visitor footfall of seven million per annum, the city is not coping. Commercial waste is left out overnight in the city centre, encouraging vermin. Oxford is one of the leading universities in the world, but the manicured college interiors contrast with the general shabbiness of the city centre. A tourist tax would help.

I visit my daughter in Argentina every year. Even with their crazy politics Argentines make the best of things. They do not eat in the street and drop litter heedlessly. Lorries do not lose tyres and sheets of plastic in the countryside, and their drivers do not throw beer cans out of the windows. The UK’s self-esteem seems to be low, reinforced by a drip feed of negativity. Our media does not help. If it stopped denigrating our beautiful country, that might encourage us to take more pride in it.

Rosanne Bostock

Oxford

Double fault

Sir: While not passing doubt on the good faith of Sarah Ditum in her review of Dr Zoe Strimpel’s book, Good Slut: How Money, Sex and Power Set Women Free (28 February), it would seem prudent not to accuse someone of ‘endemic sloppiness’ by providing an example that is itself a sign of sloppy research to support the claim. Contrary to what Ms Ditum claims, Dr Strimpel is right about the definition and timeline of no-fault divorce. The law passed in 1969, with introduction in 1971: divorce could then be granted after two years if there was agreement between the parties, and five if not, with no ‘fault’ needed. Ms Ditum also accuses Dr Strimpel of being ‘astonishingly unaware that female evolutionary biologists exist’. Yet Dr Strimpel’s MPhil in gender studies at Cambridge and PhD in gender history at Sussex (revealed by a quick google) would suggest that, however much Ms Ditum may disagree with Dr Strimpel’s argument, the latter was not likely writing out of ‘astonishing unawareness’. One suspects rather that, having surveyed this notoriously scientifically dubious field, Dr Strimpel simply came to different conclusions about it.

Harry Jenkins

Stratford-upon-Avon

Over Tyne

Sir: Allan Mallinson writes of the later neglect of Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood (Books, 7 March). He is far from forgotten in his birthplace, where a 100ft statue stands guarding the mouth of the Tyne. We Geordies remain grateful.

Professor Rachel Dwyer

By email

Counting crows

Sir: I was surprised to be called a ‘boastful’ leftie (‘Brag race’, 14 March). It would be unbecoming for an author of a column titled Silver Spoon to be so pompous.

Finn McRedmond

MA Cantab

London N3