Letters: unless the conservatives stop squabbling now, it will be too late to stop jeremy corbyn

SIR – The next election campaign is well under way and Jeremy Corbyn is winning. The Conservative Party needs to stop squabbling, dampen its egos and get its house in order, or it will soon

be too late. RALPH SEYMOUR Hartlebury, Worcestershire SIR – Britain faces its greatest danger in 70 years, with the uncertainty of Brexit and a neo-Marxist Labour government-in-waiting. If

Cabinet ministers (aided and abetted by their political advisers) are tempted to use the platform of the Conservative conference to make their pitch for the leadership and indulge in selfish

infighting, they may find that they have brought the Government down and propelled Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and their dangerous henchmen into government. It’s a horrific prospect –

these people believe that bankrupt Venezuela is better governed than Britain. It would blight the lives of British people for generations. Conservative ministers must put their country

before themselves. They must back the Prime Minister. And they must show that there really is unity at the heart of government. LORD SHERBOURNE OF DIDSBURY London SW1 SIR – Theresa May’s

pathetic proposals on tuition fees will be regarded with derision by students, glee by Labour, and embarrassment by sensible Conservatives. Like Marie Antoinette in 1789, Mrs May appears to

have zero grasp of what the problem is or what to do about it. She turns in confusion to the same small clique of useless advisers and then parrots the words they put into her mouth, which

only serve to render a bad situation worse. It is a repeat of the Manifesto fiasco. Mrs May simply has to go and soon, and be replaced by a leader with genuine charisma, popular appeal and a

common sense with which the electorate can identify. Otherwise it will not be long before we hear the rattle of Comrade Citizen Corbyn’s tumbrils across the cobbles of Westminster. TERRY

SMITH London NW11 SIR – Mrs May has attracted praise by speaking up for capitalism at long last. At the last election it was far from obvious that she had a deep attachment to it. No

Conservative document has ever done so much damage to the capitalist cause as the interventionist manifesto written for her by ex-chief of staff Nick Timothy and the ex-MP Ben Gummer. The

case for capitalism needs to be advanced with the ardour that Jeremy Corbyn has brought to the advocacy of socialism, enabling him to capture young voters in droves with its bogus prospectus

for greater prosperity through the central direction of economic resources. His success comes the more easily because the Tories have failed to secure for young people one of the principal

benefits of capitalism: the wide diffusion of property, particularly in the form of home ownership. It is a cardinal tenet of conservatism that property is the foundation of a free society.

The occasional speech in favour of capitalism will not turn the tide. The fervour that Keith Joseph brought to the task of propagating it in the Seventies needs to be rekindled. The

overwhelming merits of capitalism must be demonstrated once again by means of policies of low taxation and free enterprise, which would extend prosperity throughout the nation. Is Mrs May up

to the task? LORD LEXDEN Director, Conservative Political Centre 1988-97 London SW1 SIR – The Prime Minister should take inspiration from her namesake, the author Winifred May. She wrote

under the pen name “Patience Strong”. GED MARTIN Youghal, Co Cork, Ireland SPANISH VIOLENCE SIR – Is the brutality of Spanish police, in their attempt to stop Catalans voting peacefully,

part of Spain’s strategy to convince Gibraltarians about the delights of democracy Spanish-style? DOMINIC KEOWN Cambridge SIR – There is continuing propaganda from the European Commission

and European Parliament against Brexit. In the Canadian Globe and Mail on Saturday, I read a diatribe against the Catalan independence referendum by Ramón Luis Valcárcel, a vice president of

the European Parliament. He compared the referendum in Catalonia to Brexit: “Those responsible for this coup against democracy prefer to ignore reality, preaching a form of populism akin to

Brexit.” For Mr Valcarcel, as for Jean-Claude Juncker and Guy Verhofstadt, the only reality can be theirs. It indicates what we face in hoping that reason will prevail in the negotiations

over Brexit. RICHARD HAYES Banstead, Surrey SIR – If we needed a clear motive for rapid departure from the EU, the action of the Spanish police in Catalonia is more than enough. Could you

imagine these scenes on the streets of Scotland? MICHAEL WYNN Prenton, Wirral SOCRATES BACKS MAY SIR – It is unlikely that, as Denis Macshane suggests (Letters, September 30), Socrates said

he was a citizen of the world. The claim, as Whitehall’s classicists will have known, is made by Plutarch, a late and cosmopolitan author doubtless foisting his own beliefs on to Socrates.

The real Socrates fought in battle for Athens three times, said that he owed everything to the city that had brought him up, and when it condemned him to death refused to evade the sentence

by going into exile elsewhere. He would have agreed with Theresa May that someone claiming to be a citizen of the world was in fact a citizen of nowhere. DAVID J CRITCHLEY Winslow,

Buckinghamshire STARLINGS’ SPLASHDOWN SIR – Not only do birds have regular mealtimes (Letters, September 30), starlings start queuing with their towels on the edge of our small pond for

their baths around 8am and 5pm. ANNE OSBORNE Ringwood, Hampshire APPLES WORTH FINDING SIR – Pauline Hay (Letters, September 30) is right. Worcester apples are vanishing. We should be clear

that this delicious apple is the Worcester Pearmain and not Tydemans Early Worcester, which does not have the same delightful nose and taste. The reasons are threefold. First of all the

yield of this apple falls short of other varieties grown today, so it is much more expensive to produce. Secondly, supermarket buyers simply do not understand that it needs to be picked and

eaten in less than two weeks for the customer to experience its incomparable flavour. Finally it has been displaced by Discovery, Britain’s earliest apple, which is sadly not in the same

league. We grow about 20 tons of organic Worcesters, picked about a month ago. We need a supermarket to take them and treat them as a premium-priced delicacy only available for a month. They

and their customers will be rewarded. JOHN ATKINS Blean, Canterbury SIR – Worcesters are flourishing here. We had a beautiful crop this year, sold to supermarkets and widely available.

CHRISTINA BUDD Hawkhurst, Kent SIR – We eagerly await the ripening, in early November, of the delicious apple, D’Arcy Spice. First found in the 19th century in the gardens of Tolleshunt

D’Arcy Hall, it has a unique flavour and is a good keeper, perfect to eat or cook until past January. An Essex triumph, it is also the forename of our granddaughter. BARRY BOND Leigh-on-Sea,

Essex PET NAMES, PET HATES SIR – Petra Flower (Letters, September 30) complains that her driving instructor called her Flower for three months. Would she have been happier if he had called

her Pet? SEÁN BELLEW London W12 KNIGHT MUSIC MEN SIR – While I would certainly not disagree with Hilary Bentley’s suggestion that John Rutter be knighted (Letters, September 29), today is

the 100th birthday of Dr Francis Jackson, director of music at York Minster 1946-82 and still active in the musical world in Yorkshire. Where is his knighthood? JOHN BRANDON Tonbridge, Kent

POSTING NEWS FOR THE WHOLE VILLAGE SIR – Jane Shilling’s reference to the demise of the picture postcard reminds me of one year when my younger brother and I were away on holiday. The local

postlady arrived at our parents’ farmhouse waving a card and saying: “The weather’s nice and they’re having a lovely time.” Alas, with the use of emails now, this delightful example of

country life won’t happen any more. GRAHAM GLASSE Lavenham, Suffolk CROWDED A&E? THEN SUPPLY MORE WARD BEDS  SIR – We read with interest your report on the reduction of NHS beds and its

impact on A&E departments. From an international perspective, there is incontrovertible evidence that a crowded emergency department is a reflection of a crowded hospital. With no beds

available, emergency patients cannot be transferred to the wards. This leads to backlogs in the emergency department, its waiting room and the ambulance bay. The scientific evidence is

equally clear: a crowded A&E is a dangerous one. Patients waiting on trolleys for admission, usually society’s most vulnerable, are at risk of delayed medical care, medical error and

complications, including death. Science aside, a prolonged trolley wait robs patients of their dignity and promotes unnecessary suffering. This problem will only get worse as the population

ages with their burden of chronic disease. Successive governments have tried to solve it by blaming the patients and focusing on diversion away from A&E. This strategy is doomed to fail.

Success depends on increasing hospital bed access. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply daft. DR ALAN DRUMMOND Chair, Communications, International Federation of Emergency Medicine

Melbourne, Australia SIR – No longer being subject to the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) would improve productivity in the NHS, not least in A&E departments. In 1992 the medical

profession agreed to limit working hours for junior doctors to 72 hours a week. The subsequent imposition of the EWTD cut this to 48 hours per week. Apart from reducing productivity, this

inevitably reduced the time available for training and educating junior doctors. It also compromised continuity of care for patients by changing to a rota system from the previous firm

structure which had been so successful. Attempts have been made in the past to gain exemption from the EWTD for the medical profession but without success. However being able to do so will

be one of the benefits from leaving the European Union. SIR TERENCE ENGLISH FRCS Oxford