Deirdre Burrell (Letters, 13 July) overlooks the scam that income tax is the only one that matters, and that the low-paid are not taxpayers. The poorest pay the most in VAT, which the Tories increase whenever they can, and which accounted for 14% of total tax in 2010.
Keith Yarwood
Blandford Forum, Dorset
• It is senseless to criticise African mothers for having “seven to eight children” (Opinion, 12 July) when often this is their only insurance against a poverty-stricken old age. The Rees-Moggs, however…
Victoria Paleit
Southmoor, Oxfordshire
• Apropos Now showing at the Ritzy: low pay and exploitation (13 July), I am delighted to report that our new independent cinema in Lewes, the Depot, pays the real living wage (£8.45 per hour) and not just to the over-25s.
Dee O’Connell
Lewes for a Living Wage, Lewes, Sussex
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is surely wrong that the moral of The Tale of Peter Rabbit is “disobey your parents and you could end up in a pie” (13 July). Peter disobeys his mother, survives and has much more fun than his siblings, even if he does pay for it in camomile tea. It was his feckless father who was put in the pie.
Peter Emmerson
Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire
• Pace the inhabitants of Waldbillig (Letters, 14 July), the Luxembourg is surely an inappropriate unit of measurement for icebergs, two-thirds of whose mass is below sea level. Would not the Holland be a more appropriate measure?
Mike Hine
Kingston upon Thames
• Good news that the blue whale skeleton has been successfully installed at the Natural History Museum (So long, Dippy, 13 July), but was Hope the best name they could come up with? Surely it was crying out to be called Whaley McWhaleface.
Malcolm Downing
London
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