Your report (11 November) on the measures taken by the Ministry of Justice to protect staff from the behaviour of their returning boss, Dominic Raab, quotes a source as saying he “makes no apologies for having high standards”. Lest we forget, this is a man who, as Brexit secretary, hadn’t realised the importance of the Dover-Calais crossing to British trade – something that any key stage 3 pupil might be expected to know.
Dr Chris Howell
Newcastle upon Tyne
• High standards? Would those be the high standards Dominic Raab employed as foreign secretary while lying on a Greek beach during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021?
Sandra Middleton
Guildford, Surrey
• Regarding the correspondence on accents (Letters, 11 November), when I had a stall in Barnstaple Pannier Market a customer told me that he used to buy “heron” there. I was amazed by this, and only later realised that he meant “herring”.
Peter Hames
Northam, Devon
• In a pub near Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, I was asked to buy a ham sandwich with the next round. The barman said “Mastodon?” and the person who it was for shouted “Mastodon”. The sandwich was presented with the ham spread with mustard.
Robert Spooner
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
• The case for the Oxford comma was clearly made by one sentence in your report (10 November): “There were four choices of sandwiches – sausage, chicken and mayonnaise, tuna and cheese.”
Ciarán Ó Maoláin
Armagh
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