A message to Lord Digby Jones: a posh accent clearly doesn’t stop you saying stupid things

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Lord Digby Jones (PA)

Oh dear! Lord Digby Jones just ruined my Olympics. Every time I now see Alex Scott, with her smiling face and friendly manner, I get a vision of a scowling, jowly baronet in my head. Shame on that man. And I speak as a proud Essex girl who can, when excited, pronounce “Priti Patel” with two glottal stops. Jones needs to understand that we’re not here to please his ears, and that speaking in a posh accent doesn’t stop you saying stupid things.

Sarah Wood OBE

Scotland

Perhaps Lord Digby Jones might suggest to Priti Patel that she also should take elocution lessons as she seems incapable of pronouncing “g’s” in words ending in “ing”. Or maybe parliamentarians are exempt from such criticism.

Incidentally, Lord Jones might also apply himself to a campaign aimed at so many people who add an “r” to words such as “drawing”, often used by educated people speaking on radio and television. When I hear it I cringe.

Patrick Cleary

Stonehouse, Gloucestershire

Who cares what someone’s accent is like as long as you can understand what they are saying. Lord Digby Jones is clearly so obsessed with speaking the “Queen’s English” he doesn’t listen to what the speaker has to say.

Claire Singh

Address supplied

I am baffled by the criticism of Alex Scott by Lord Digby Jones. Isn’t Alex’s accent representative of all Londoners? It certainly is of the cast of EastEnders.

Ken Twiss

Yarm, Cleveland

Proportional representation

Femi Oluwole (Voices, 1 August) makes familiar arguments why first past the post must be ditched for proportional representation, but the more pressing issue is voter apathy. At the last general election, 32.7 per cent of the electorate did not vote. I hear from these people that it is because politicians are all the same, never keeping their promises, never getting anything done and never being honest. I must admit I have no answers to their feelings. Is not our democracy broken because the wrong people are in politics? With the right people, proportional representation would come in.

Kartar Uppal

Sutton Coldfield

I join Femi Oluwole with his article stating that “We need electoral reform to fix our broken democracy”. As I and many others who have had a lifetime of their votes being wasted, I join him in standing up and stating the bleedin’ obvious. A system which awards a winner if they achieve just one vote more than the other tens of thousands is, at best, unworkable for most – and criminal at worst.

Jan Hitchcock

Leigh on Sea, Essex

They speak Latin there, don’t they?

It just crossed my mind that this unworkable and ultimately pointless idea to teach Latin in state schools is a result of Gavin Williamson being slightly confused. Hopefully, he reads quality newspapers and will appreciate my help in assuring him that they do not speak Latin in Latin America.

Robert Boston

Kingshill