Mad and bad

Sir: I suspect that Gary Johns is correct in his assertion that Anders Breivik was having a lend in taking “his gaolers to court for interfering with his human rights”. Mad people often feel the need to take the piss in order to demonstrate their delusional superiority.

Breivik was clearly as mad as he was bad. His abnormal lack of empathy could only be made possible by abnormal brain functioning.

The only sanities in question are those of the clinicians who found him sane and of the judge who could not distinguish inhuman treatment from keeping this mad/bad man safe from other psychopaths.
Mark Porter
New Lambton, NSW

Delcon dummy spit

Sir: Richard Ferguson draws a long and tendentious bow (Notes, 30 April). Senator Conroy is a Collingwood supporter with underpants-issues, so I’d hardly rate his infantile outburst against the G-G as being a portent of anything in general, let alone a republic. Moreover, the only way to stop people insulting dignitaries is to do what the King of Thailand does and throw them in jail – a royal 18C, of sorts.

Also, you might want to contact Guinness World Records regarding longest-dummy-spit by a delcon (David Flint, 2015-16).
Russell Graham
Belmont, Vic

The EU gravy train

Sir: Despite his splendid forename, your deputy editor Freddy Gray has a very tenuous grasp of human nature. Having accurately detected a simmering voter mutiny across much of Europe and the UK, he decrees that those heartily sick and tired of being constantly lied to and thus treated with contempt by the EU gravy-train-riding establishments must be either extreme right-wing or mad (‘A right mess’, 30 April). Actually, we are neither.

Does he really believe it to be coincidental that 95 per cent of the UK establishment (there are still a few good ’uns in the mix) are screaming, desperate that their gravy train not be derailed by mere electors? The EU is the biggest taxpayer-funded free ride in the world, and there is nothing right-wing or insane in deciding enough is enough.

Finally, is it not odd that the same faces and the same voices warned us that we would face disaster unless we abolished the pound sterling and adopted the euro? The Remain campaign of today is the same tripe we were fed back then.
Frederick Forsyth
Beaconsfield, Bucks

Cameron’s Scottish absence

Sir: The Prime Minister’s decision not to make an appearance on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives during this Scottish parliamentary election is extremely disappointing. I wonder if this was his idea? Either way, it doesn’t look good. Of course, it takes a good deal of moral courage, not to say a thick skin, to take on the SNP bully boys. But can you imagine Boris Johnson being afraid to take on the challenge?

David Cameron has been a godsend of a Prime Minister in these difficult economic times. But electing to stay away from the Scottish election plays beautifully to the SNP’s separatist agenda. We voted by a good margin to stay part of the United Kingdom in September 2014. By staying away from Scotland during these Scottish elections, the Prime Minister has made a huge political error.
Andrew Hamilton
Gifford, East Lothian

Deaths from Chernobyl

Sir: Your Barometer (30 April) significantly understates the deaths resulting from the Chernobyl disaster, particularly among the many ‘volunteers’ for the clear-up operations, who were attracted by the promise of a year off army service, and who worked totally without appropriate protection. I doubt we will ever get reliable statistics. Six years ago, when I visited the site with a group of journalists, the then head of operations at Chernobyl told us that of 40 people in the vicinity of the reactor, 39 had died instantly or within weeks; only one survived, dying in 2003.
David Conway
Enfield

Environmental protection

Sir: In their letter to The Spectator (Letters, 30 April), John Gummer, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten et al seem to have inadvertently exposed the fatal failure of the Remain campaign to grasp the fundamentals of basic democracy. They stated that leaving the EU would ‘undercut existing UK environmental protections, since there is no guarantee that the high standards we have negotiated within Europe will remain in place in Britain’.

What an odd thing to say. An independent UK could decide whatever levels of environmental protection it thought appropriate for the UK. These former government ministers, however, seem to suggest that it is better to have standards imposed upon us from outside because our elected government is incapable of managing our own affairs.
Anthony Whitehead
Bristol

Cluff’s Borneo adventures

Sir: Harry Mount’s wonderful interview with Algy Cluff (‘The unlikely oilman’, 30 April) could ring a bell in many paratroopers and guardsmen’s minds. As the article reminds us, he served in the Grenadier Guards in Africa, Cyprus and Malaysia and, which was not mentioned, also in the No. 1 (Gds) Independent Paras in the Borneo jungle. I know this because I have Peter Harclerode’s outstanding history of our airborne forces, Para!, and among the photographs is one of Algy Cluff preparing to deploy into the jungle.
Edward Brandt
Ropley, Hampshire