The irony of Jeremy Hunt’s call for Britain to be more like Singapore

Schools and ‘fairness’

SIR – Barristers representing the Treasury, HMRC and the Department for Education argue that the aim of Labour’s policy on private schools is to improve standards for the 94 per cent of children in state education by making private school parents pay their “fair share”.

However, as state education is funded from income tax, the parents of privately educated pupils are in effect paying twice for their children’s schooling.

How is this arrangement unfair to state-educated pupils?

Heather Howells
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

SIR – The Chancellor was warned that the application of VAT to private school fees would harm poorer families (report, April 1). This is surely an economic axiom when a regressive tax is implemented.

In this case, it is no doubt being applied punitively, with a view to limiting parental choice and the educational opportunities available to hard-working, self-sacrificing and aspirational families.

To suggest that economics, rather than ideology, underpins this policy is to take the electorate for fools.

Dr Michael Gray
Headmaster, Hereford Cathedral School

Against second homes

SIR – If Cornwall’s council tax increase on second homes (report, April 4) results in more full-time residents, the areas concerned will be better for it. The tourism industry will also welcome the increased availability of local workers.

Those who claim that second-home owners bring large amounts of money with them should count the delivery vans appearing outside their properties. In the case of holiday lets, cleaners are often bussed in from elsewhere and profits leave the area, going to letting agencies and absent owners.

A V Lofts
Salcombe, Devon

SIR – I don’t suppose it has occurred to those seeking to penalise second-home owners that some people only bought them because, when they did, there were no superannuation pension schemes available for the self-employed.

Many baby boomers did not wish to be a burden on the state in old age, so purchased property as part of their retirement plans.

So much for prudence.

Patrick Gosbee
London SE9

Saving water

SIR – Dr Tony Parker’s letter (April 3) about his efforts to reduce his water bill reminded me of the 1976 drought, when we syphoned water out of the bath with a long hosepipe to use on the garden.

Jack Marriott
Churt, Surrey

SIR – Water is used incredibly wastefully. There is no need to shower every day. In a household, all members should have their own mug, which doesn’t need washing after each use. Clothes could be washed less often, apart from underwear. Bedsheets, pillowcases and towels could be changed less. In families, bathwater could be shared.

We could also collect rainwater in tubs and buckets, to use for cooking, washing and watering the garden.

Elizabeth FitzGibbon
Burghead, Morayshire

Quakers’ achievements deserve admiration

SIR – Guy Dampier’s article (“The Quakers are no strangers to disruptive Left-wing activism”, Comment, April 1) either deliberately misunderstands the link between ideology and religious belief or is ignorant of Quakers’ form of worship.

I am not a Quaker, but I admire their historic and current drive to effect change for the better in society. Mr Dampier may not agree with them as to what constitutes “for the better”, but denigration is a weak form of argument.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Lib Dem)
London SW1

SIR – Guy Dampier is wrong to imply that Quakers support a “hard-Left” ideology. Quakers seek to be guided by what is true and right. This often leads us to work for change in the world, which can bring us into conflict with the state. However, as Mr Dampier’s article tacitly acknowledges, the radical and unpopular positions of today may later become orthodoxy.

Social reform, including work for a fairer society, is not the preserve of the Left. Opposition to slavery, for example, crosses the political divide, although at one time this was an accepted practice. Quakers’ work for peace and equality may easily be ridiculed, but it led to our involvement in the Kindertransport and our peacebuilding and relief work in post-war Germany (for which we won the Nobel Peace Prize).

Sarah Donaldson
Manchester

The privilege test

SIR – Westminster city council is telling its employees to take a “privilege” test (report, telegraph.co.uk, April 3).

The test asks them, among other things, whether they own a new car or a designer bag, whether their parents used to read to them, and whether they shop at Waitrose.

I can answer “yes” to these questions. Yet I was born poor and simply worked hard. Privilege does not come into it.

Barbara Marshall
Helmdon, Northamptonshire

SIR – As someone born and raised just a few miles from Liverpool, I have always regarded “received pronunciation” simply as a way of speaking that is clear and comprehensible, rather than being “associated with the upper class”, as your report suggests (“From Toxteth with love... Scouse actor would be made up to be 007”, report, April 4). The fetishisation of regional accents is one of the reasons that listening to television and radio news is so intolerable.

Kevin Duffy
Manchester
 

Best of Radio 3

SIR – I will also miss Petroc Trelawny on Radio 3’s Breakfast (Letters, April 3), especially for the snippets of information and relevant musical offerings that he delivers so eruditely. I hope he might still be able to present the occasional musical river trip, as he has done over the past few years.

If the new incumbent, Tom McKinney, continues in his overuse of superlatives when referring to the tracks he plays, I shall listen to Mr Trelawny’s In Tune on BBC Sounds in the morning instead.

Alexandra Rous
London SE23

SIR – I too have enjoyed the soothing tones of Petroc Trelawny on Radio 3’s Breakfast. In addition, anyone who can weave Bob Marley, The Doors and Napalm Death seamlessly into a classical music show has my admiration. 

Dominic Weston Smith
Fernham, Oxfordshire

Dishwasher hygiene

SIR – Angela Walters (Letters, April 3) questions the need for a “lemon freshener” for dishwashers.

I suspect these products are intended for people who use those dishwasher tablets that come with the assurance that dishes do not need to be rinsed before being placed in the machine. The resultant build-up of muck must inevitably generate some unpleasant odours, requiring “camouflage” by a freshener. That said, the fresheners are probably made by the same company that makes the cleaning tablets.

John Snook
Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Primrose profusion

SIR – With regard to Jan Ritchie’s letter (April 1) about primroses, I recall that when I was a child living in Devon in the 1960s, the hedgerows were full of them.

This was long before picking wildflowers became an offence, and my younger sister and I gathered bunches of them – each containing 50 primroses and five leaves – for the local paper mill, whose owner sent them to customers as an Easter gift. We were given sixpence per bunch, which equalled our weekly pocket money.

I am pleased to report that my local hedgerows now have one of the finest displays of pale yellow primroses I have seen for several years.

Robin Thomas
Thorverton, Devon

SIR – I recently noticed an improbable abundance of primroses on the banks of the M4. How did they get there?

Janette Semmens
London SW1

SIR – I have memories of boxes arriving in spring at my junior school in the East End of London, filled with bunches of primroses and violets.

To children like me, who had never seen either one growing, the sight and scent of those small flowers spoke of a world beyond bomb-site playgrounds.

I now have primroses and violets en masse in my garden.

Margaret O’Connor
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

SIR – I recently bought a packet of Brussels sprout seeds. The cost was £1.98 for 200.

Earlier this year, I bought some tomato seeds. These, however, cost £3 for six.

Why so expensive?

Robert Ward
Loughborough, Leciestershire

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