I enjoyed Eric Homberger’s obituary of Edmund White (4 June), but take exception to his claim, of the Aids crisis, that Ed’s “lack of response seemed a manifest failure of his nerve as a writer”. Ed co-authored a superb collection of stories with Adam Mars-Jones, The Darker Proof, which was a bracing comfort to those of us then losing friends as though in a war the rest of the country was ignoring. It was a totemic work for those of us who had yet to find the courage or words to write about Aids in our novels.
Patrick Gale
Penzance, Cornwall
• Thank you for Monday’s Journal. Such brilliant writing by Nesrine Malik, John Harris, Sally Rooney and of course on the letters page. It should be compulsory reading for Keir Starmer and his cabinet – they might develop a collective backbone. Too much to hope for?
Daniel Taylor
Brighton
• Why do we need to raise our spending on defence (UK will commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence by 2035, 23 June) when the foreign secretary’s advice to a country being attacked by bombs being dropped on it is to “dial this thing down” – not retaliate?
Paul Russell
Winchester
• What peeves my inner pedant (Letters, 23 June)? Politicians saying “I have been perfectly clear” when they are being anything but.
Tom Stubbs
Surbiton, Surrey
• And don’t get me started on “re-double” your efforts.
Stuart Waterworth
Tavistock, Devon
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