Rachel Wolf, a Conservative party policy adviser, recommends that civil servants should take regular exams to prove competence in their jobs (Report, 3 January). May I suggest that politicians should be subject to similar testing, and that, in our fragile democracy, policy advisers should hold no power without first facing an electoral test as well?
James Mackay
Warwick
• I have no religious faith and only a passing interest in religious institutions, but I do like a good letter. The comment of Rev Canon Dr Rob Kelsey (Letters, 4 January) that “Small can be beautiful; a satsuma is not a failed orange” is a precept that will stay with me, a person of less than average height, for a long time.
Anne Cowper
Swansea
• It appears, rather surprisingly, that Donald Trump reads Shakespeare. Henry IV gives advice to his son: “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.” (How US killed general who was seen as untouchable, 4 January)
Angela Barton
Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire
• I sympathise with my fellow readers who have been told their new purchases will outlast them (Letters, 3 January). On buying a second-hand car last year the salesman said: “I presume this will be your last car, sir.” I’m 74.
John Gooder
Beverley, East Yorkshire
• Ian Anderson (Letters, 3 January) expressed disappointment that British folk music wasn’t included in the list of the best of new music for 2020. Perhaps Ian, a la Jethro Tull, is just “Living in the Past”?
Sue Grainger
Balerno, Midlothian
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