If Rishi Sunak imposes yet another squeeze on public-sector pay (New UK spending row as Rishi Sunak puts squeeze on public sector salaries, 20 November), supposedly to bring it in line with the private sector, it will be even clearer that the government is levelling down, not up.
Geoff Booth
Knebworth, Hertfordshire
• Boris Johnson tries to deflect blame from himself by calling Keir Starmer “Captain Hindsight” (Politics live, theguardian.com, 18 November). Military nicknames for the prime minister abound – General Incompetence, Captain Clueless, etc. Surely, after this year’s showing, his everlasting moniker should be Major Catastrophe.
Susan Castles
Wem, Shropshire
• I see the government is getting the NHS to manage the vaccination programme (NHS assembles army of staff for mass coronavirus vaccinations, 19 November). Have they run out of chums?
Elizabeth Pearson
New Barnet, London
• Perhaps Elena Ferrante was a bit distracted when composing this list (Elena Ferrante names her 40 favourite books by female authors, 21 November). That might explain the complete omittance of any works by Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, Barbara Pym and Sylvia Plath.
Stefan Badham
Portsmouth, Hampshire
• I feel obliged, having used one extensively during my time as a clerk, to provide the technical term for the page-turning and paper-counting aid mentioned by Dr Brigid Purcell (Letters, 18 November): a fingerette.
Diana Cairns
Edinburgh
• So the farming year “begins with a bang for ewes”, despite the rams’ vasectomies (Country diary, 20 November). A Bluefaced Leicester? I’m not surprised.
Brian Smith
Berlin, Germany
