A feature on the JD Wetherspoon pub chain misstated the percentage it contributes to total UK tax revenue. It said the company “pays 0.1%, or 1/1,000th%”. 0.1% is equivalent to one-thousandth (1/1,000) – not the same as one one-thousandth per cent (one-thousandth of one percentage point), which would equate to 0.001% (“How Britain fell for Wetherspoon’s”, Magazine, 6 August, page 21).
A panel accompanying “Benedictines elect new chief and brace for stormy autumn as order faces abuse inquiry” (News, last week, page 15) said, of Benedictine schools, that Ampleforth was founded in 1802, followed by Downside in 1814. Technically, Downside was formed in 1606, at the community of St Gregory the Great at Douai, in Flanders. English Catholics were given sanctuary there, following the dissolution of the monasteries from 1530. Its founders organised a school for English boys and provided a base for Benedictine missions in England. It moved to its current site in 1814.
Apologies: last week, we inadvertently labelled Heidi Alexander a Conservative. She is a Labour MP (“David Miliband: we need a second vote on Brexit deal”, News, page 1).
Write to Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor, the Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, email observer.readers@observer.co.uk tel 020 3353 4656
