Polly Toynbee says Angela Rayner, in her local government white paper, “boasted that it will mean ‘fewer [local] politicians’” (Opinion, 18 February), as if they are a bacillus to be wiped out. I am represented by a Conservative councillor on Ilkley town council. On Bradford city council I rejoice in a Green councillor. And in my county of West Yorkshire I have the benefit of a Labour mayor. Such a plurality is the lifeblood of democracy.
Rodney Brooke
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
• Nadia Khomami says sales of Wuthering Heights, the actual book, have increased by 469% (Opinion, 16 February). I predict shelves full of copies discarded in charity shops when readers search in vain for nuns or masturbation, and are left wondering who the devil Hindley Earnshaw is, as Emily Brontë clearly should have left him out.
Jane Ghosh
Bristol
• When I was a child, we had a Belling bed warmer, a flying-saucer-shaped metal shell with a standard 40-watt lightbulb inside (Letters, 16 February). It was surprisingly efficient, but occasionally scorched a sheet or two. We called it Horace – I have no idea why.
Stephen Ingamells
Ilford, London
• After losing all his titles, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has now suffered the ignominy of being omitted from the Guardian Birthdays list in the print edition (19 February).
Peter Mitchell
London
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