Martin Kettle’s piece about an exhibition in Berlin on pivotal moments in German history will, I hope, start a debate about such British moments (What would Britain look like today if we’d chosen to follow the roads not taken?, 31 May). May I suggest that the decision to go to war in 1914 is one such? The enormous loss of young British lives and the economic damage to the country still reverberate. And could we please have an exhibition in London like the one in Berlin?
Claude Scott
London
• I was overjoyed to read Martin Kettle’s defence of counterfactual history. I too have always found this a valuable area of discussion, and not the pointless waste of time it is to people I’d otherwise respect. May I suggest, though, that he overlooked the single transferable vote failing by seven votes in the Commons in 1917, which could have saved us for ever from the dysfunctional politics that we have today, which is fundamentally unfit for the world we now live in.
Robin Carmody
Portland, Dorset
