Polly Toynbee spells out the positive legacy of Ken Clarke (Opinion, 2 February). But his courage faltered on one significant occasion – his refusal when home secretary to pardon Derek Bentley, leaving it to our courts to right a terrible wrong.
Benedict Birnberg
London
• I was helping my 10-year-old grandson with his spellings (Michael Rosen, Letter from a curious parent, 31 January). These included, minuscule, minutiae and manifest, among others. When I suggested that we checked the meanings of the words, he said: “Oh no, Grandma, we don’t need to know what they MEAN, we just have to know how to SPELL them!” What a waste of a learning opportunity.
Lesley Barnes
London
• In my copy of the Highway Code (sixth impression, 2001), in the table of typical stopping distances, speeds are given in miles per hour and the thinking and braking distances in metres. A conversion into feet is given to the side, presumably for the benefit of Brexiters (Letters, 2 February).
Ian Henry
Guisborough, North Yorkshire
• David Geall’s explanation that we use the definite article in plural place names (Letters, 1 February) does not explain the Czech Republic. In fact the system is that we use the definite article for countries and territories with a noun in their names (such as state, republic, island, kingdom), even when the noun is merely understood (the Canaries). But the Ukraine is another story.
Christian Bartlett
Lincoln
• In The Weetabix Illustrated British History book, published in 1989, the famous cereal’s arrival in the UK in 1936 is given equal billing to the rise of Hitler and the invention of penicillin (Letters, passim).
Nicholas Tucker
Lewes, East Sussex
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