LETTERS
beautiful; that does not make it truthful’,
whereas I argued in my Standpoint article
‘The Devout Sceptic’ that ‘that which is
mysterious is not for that reason untrue’.
The fact that this nice dispute has
emerged for discussion under the auspices
of The Spectator’s wine column is proof of
your magazine’s ability to keep us all on
our toes.
Jonathan Gaisman
London EC4Definition of spending
Sir: Rory Sutherland touches on some
very interesting points in his discussion
of whether a four-day week would work
in the UK (The Wiki Man, 27 October).
My main qualm was his characterisation
of government not taking tax from
pension contributions as ‘spending’. By this
definition, anything below a 100 per cent tax
rate is ‘spending’. How very progressive!
Edward Stevenson
Much Hadham, HertsWe need Abbott
Sir: Many thanks to Tony Abbott for
reminding us of the key issues that we need
to achieve in the Brexit negotiations and
why we are still in a strong position, despite
the endless variations on Project Fear
churned out by the hard-line Remainers
in Westminster and the media (‘How to
save Brexit’, 27 October). If only we had a
government able to follow his advice and
actually believe in the UK. If Mr Abbott is
no longer needed in his own country, would
he like to come and show us the way?
Richard Hoare
East Lavant, West SussexTracks of his years
Sir: Further to the correspondence about
guests on Desert Island Discs choosing
their own records, a couple of weeks ago
Nile Rodgers chose five that he had written
or produced. They were all classics, but it’s
not quite in the spirit of the thing, is it?
Rebecca Greenwood
Fowey, CornwallDon’t forget My Face
Sir: I was disappointed, neigh, surprised
that Robin Oakley omitted the apocryphal
‘My Face’ in his list of naughty horse names
(The Turf, 27 October). Its owner allegedly
delighted in shouting out ‘Come on
My Face’ from the owners’ enclosure
whenever it raced.
Wyn Davies
Brentwood, EssexPolitical vitriol
Sir: Vitriol and incivility seem to be
everywhere in politics just now. In the last
issue (27 October) John R. MacArthur
linked a ‘rise in national coarseness’ to
the election of Donald Trump, while
Freddy Gray hints at a longer historical
perspective when he writes that American
politics ‘has always been unpleasant’. That
‘always’ is not hyperbole: in Alexander
Hamilton Ron Chernow describes in vivid
detail the ‘vile partisanship’ of the 1790s,
stoked by newspapers that were often
‘scurrilous and inaccurate’.
‘Nothing can now be believed which
is seen in a newspaper,’ said Thomas
Jefferson, third president of the United
States. The second president, John Adams,
lamented the ‘sour, angry, peevish,
fretful, lying paragraphs’ with which the
press battered the government. By 1792,
early America was already becoming
accustomed to ‘post-truth’ public life.
According to Chernow, ‘anonymous
attacks permitted extraordinary bile
to seep into political discourse... The
brutal tone of these papers made politics
a wounding ordeal.’ Sometimes, the
wounds were literal. Hamilton once asked
demonstrators to show respect, and was
instead greeted by a volley of stones, one
of which struck him on the forehead. ‘If
you use such knock-down arguments,’ he
remarked, ‘I must retire.’ More shocking
is the reaction of Jefferson: a bitter enemy
of Hamiltonian policies, he was elated on
hearing the news of the street brawl.
Jon Wainwright
London SE5
Short position
Sir: In response to Mr Skelsey’s
animadversions on Nigel Short and the
election for the post of president of the
World Chess Federation, I fear that in trying
to excuse the behaviour of the English
Chess Federation, the correspondent misses
the irony of his stance (Letters, 27 October).
Had the ECF right from the start supported
Nigel, arguably the most outstanding
personality in the history of English chess,
then he might well have stood a good
chance. Instead, ECF officials chose not just
to back a dubious rival candidate, but also
to vilify Nigel in the most public fashion,
thereby driving him into the arms of the
least objectionable alternative candidate.
So I maintain that the ECF vote was not
just wasted, but squandered.
As for the largely unopposed
reinstatement of ECF officials within a
brief period after the elections for the
world governing body (which Mr Skelsey
considers a ringing endorsement of ECF
policies), there was very little time for
Nigel to organise an effective opposition
to ECF incumbents hostile to him.
Sometimes one has to pick one’s battles.
I predict a very different outcome at next
year’s ECF elections.
Ray Keene
London SW4I never said that
Sir: Amid other more or less benign
fabulations contained in Bruce Anderson’s
column last week (Drink, 27 October),
he attributes to me the view that non-
Christians should not be permitted to
prescribe the rules of a club to which
they do not belong. I have never held
or expressed this opinion, which is
indefensible: of course one does not have
to be a believer in order to be a theologian.
The real issue between us turns on his
assertion that the concept of truth usefully
applies only to verifiable subject matters,
whereas I maintain that faith is not purely
a matter of reason, and one can defensibly
believe in the truth of what remains
mysterious. He says: ‘Mysticism may be