Re your report (Proportion of students in England awarded first-class degrees soars, 19 November), I got my BA degree from Nottingham University in 1970. When we began our final year we were told that there would be no first-class degrees for politics students that year. “We mark on the bell curve,” they said. “And we get one first per 30 students. There are only 15 students each year for politics, and a student got a first last year. So none of you lot can get one.”
Stephen Rees
Vancouver, Canada
• To while away the time during this lockdown, we are going through over 40 years of photographic slides. To save space, we are digitising the slides and discarding the originals. We now have a large number of empty yellow plastic boxes. Suggestions, please, for alternative uses – like 35mm film canisters, they must be useful for something!
Elizabeth and Les Brett
Welling, London
• “Unintentional” bullying surely implies a lack of empathy, compassion and self-awareness (Bullying inquiry ‘found evidence Priti Patel broke ministerial code’, 19 November). Strange characteristics for a British home secretary, especially in the aftermath of the Windrush fiasco.
Sandy Derbyshire
London
• What a metaphor. Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye running down his face (Donald Trump mounts all-out assault on election result in Michigan, 19 November) reminded me of the closing scenes of Death in Venice.
Angela Bogle
Bakewell, Derbyshire
• Your editorial (18 November) rightly condemns the cronyism displayed by the Tories in their procurement of PPE, but let’s give it its proper name: looting.
Deirdre Burrell
Mortimer, Berkshire
