Thanks to Soup for the splendid birthday compliment to Graeme Garden (Cryptic crossword, 18 February). It brought back joyous memories of the Goodies, and reminded me of how many years I’ve been hooting with laughter at I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Many happy returns, Graeme – and all power to your setting, Soup.
Julie Mottershead
Deal, Kent
• Roger Mosey makes a lot of good points in his critique of the current news agenda (While we’re seeking to fix what’s wrong with Britain, look hard at our policy-lite, sensation-seeking media, 18 February). At the BBC, we used to have something called “the significance test”. In other words, does this story matter? It sounds as if it is time to reintroduce that test in a lot of newsrooms.
Phil Harding
Former editor, Today programme
• Nigel Farage’s group of has-beens and wannabes is not so much a cabinet (The politics sketch, 17 February), more a flat-pack self-assembly item that doesn’t fit together and lacks essential parts.
Les Bright
Exeter
• Keir Starmer may be “the archetypal status quo politician” (Letters, 16 February), but we all know which party leader would take this country into Dire Straits.
Dave Headey
Faringdon, Oxfordshire
• Populism: appealing to the worst in human nature (‘Populism’: we used to know what it meant. Now the defining word of our era has lost its meaning, 18 February).
Venetia Caine
Glastonbury, Somerset
• The 11% of births that are neither C-sections nor vaginal deliveries (Letters, 18 February) are obviously babies brought by the stork or found under the gooseberry bush.
Janet Wilson
Nuthall, Nottinghamshire
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