<i>IoS</i> letters, emails & online comments (25 January 2009)

The interview by Robert Chalmers with the controller of Radio 4, Mark Damazer, was depressing in its assumption that the former BBC received pronunciation was elitist ("Listen to this", The New Review, 18 January). On the contrary, it was the one tongue that everyone understood. Language is tribal, and in a country like our own with any number of local speech habits, it is foolish to imagine that we all understand or appreciate each other's speech. How many regional accents will it take to satisfy Mark Damazer that he is not being elitist? And when he does achieve his target, who will still be listening?

Doraine Potts

Woodmancote, Gloucestershire

Robert Chalmers attacks Radio 4 on the basis of class. Perhaps the BBC is supposed to pretend that this country doesn't have a middle class, and therefore need not cater to it. Chalmers might as well quiz the director of Radio 1 on why the station doesn't cater more for an older audience.

Tess Ford

Midhurst, West Sussex

As the association representing most major manufacturers of the equipment that transmits and distributes electricity, we welcome the Conservative Party's plans for a "smart grid" ("The planet has to pay for every boiling kettle", 11 January). UK electricity loses around two-thirds of its fuel energy by the time it reaches the point of use. Investment decisions are being made now for equipment in the grid that is far less efficient than it could be, and which will be in place for 20 to 30 years. We need to future-proof our network for the integration of renewable technologies, and to see the plans for smart metering implemented quickly. The industry has got the message on climate change, and many of us are ready to deliver solutions as soon as effective policies are in place to overcome the many institutional barriers.

Howard Porter

British Electrotechnical and Allied Manufacturers' association

London SE1

Alan Watkins's assessment of Kenneth Clarke's position within the Conservative Party is, alas, accurate ("Mr Clarke to return? He's hardly been away" 18 January). It's Mr Clarke's and the country's misfortune that the party continues to be dominated by an antediluvian element in denial over Europe. To opt for an off-shore island status, or subservience to the United States, would be a suicidal folly. It's a pity that Mr Clarke has not been able to make his party see the light.

John Romer

London W5

Ishar is simply wrong to state that the word Paki refers to any one race (Letters, 18 January). The acronymic Pakistan refers to people in Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan and thus refers to five subsumed nationalities. One can be either a Pakistani national or a British national. The term British Pakistani is meaningless.

Allan Friswell

Cowling, North Yorkshire

I have just read this in Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernières:

"History has no beginnings, for everything that happens becomes the cause or pretext for what occurs afterwards, and this chain of cause and pretext stretches back to the Palaeolithic Age.... The triple contagion of nationalism, utopianism and religious absolutism effervesce together into an acid that corrodes the moral metal of a race, and it shamelessly and even proudly performs deeds that it would deem vile if they were done by any other." In the context of Gaza, this is a tragic truth.

Helen Higgs

Cambridge

Community service, drug rehab, and the gift of at least 10 per cent of future fees to drug charities would have been more appropriate for Boy George ("Another butterfly broken on a wheel", 18 January).

drewboy 45

posted online

Feminism shouldn't be just about getting women into higher-paying jobs ("Meet the women bringing feminism to a new generation", 18 January). It should be about getting equal numbers of women and men interested in and qualified in every area, regardless of its traditional association with either gender.

weltschmerz42

posted online

The newest wave of feminism is actually the biggest revolution since the 1920s. It seeks to redefine work itself, to take it out of the male paradigm of labour done for pay alone, and also to count what women have always done, unpaid, in the home: caring for the young, the sick, the elderly and the dying.

Beverley Smith

posted online

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Letters to the Editor, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS; fax: 020-7005 2628; email: sundayletters@independent.co.uk(with address and telephone, and no attachments, please); online: independent.co.uk/dayinapage/2009/January/25