Contrary to a Comment piece headlined “Sneering at miners reflects a deep malaise in our universities” (last week, page 38), 61.5% of UK students at Durham University in the 2016 intake were from state schools, not 42.8%. The article also claimed that catering staff were “not paid the living wage”. The university makes it clear that all staff are paid rates above the government’s national living wage. We apologise for these errors.
The first line of “Inside Britain First: ex-member tells of petty rivalries, racism and violent anti-Muslim plots” (In Focus, last week, page 27) said: “Britain First may have been thrust into the epicentre of global politics by Donald Trump…” Our style guide says of the word epicentre: “Point on the Earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake or underground explosion; frequently misused to mean the centre or focus itself and is also not a synonym for ‘dead centre’.” Another piece on Britain First (“Far-right leader ‘tried to stop sex assault complaint’ ”, News, last week, page 12) described the anti-Muslim group as a party but (as noted in “Trumps retweets and the value of a scandal”, New Review, last week, page 21) the group has been de-registered by the Electoral Commission.
Write to Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor, the Observer, York Way, London N1 9GU, email observer.readers@observer.co.uk tel 0203 353 4656
