How many more times will the Guardian tell us that Ursula von der Leyen is the mother of seven (Report, 19 July)? Why are female politicians still subject to this kind of characterisation? Generally we only get told about male politicians’ families when they choose to use them as photo opportunities, or when there is speculation about how many children they have with their wives and how many with their mistresses. Please change your style guide to ensure that these unnecessary details are deleted before they reach the press.
Liz Reason
Charlbury, Oxfordshire
• Whether Scotland’s appalling drug problem is Westminster’s fault, as Simon Jenkins maintains (Journal, 19 July), is open to debate. But it makes one wonder just how successful the much-lauded “public approach” to the reduction in Glasgow’s knife crime really was. How could a public health approach have ignored the prevalence of drugs?
Stan Labovitch
Windsor, Berkshire
• So Sajid Javid thinks that it does not help to demonise Nigel Farage, and to see danger when it is not there (Report, 20 July). Perhaps it would help to apply the same criteria to Jeremy Corbyn?
Stuart Raymond
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
• Ofsted is a “source of stress for teachers” (Report, 22 July). Who’d have thought it?
Robert Newton
Oldham, Greater Manchester
• While I concur with Anne Cowper (“Let them eat mice”), if only they would. Dead and half-eaten (usually the liver) corpses abound (Letters, 22 July).
Christopher Westall
Wombourne, South Staffordshire
• My newsagent offered me a free copy of the Sun with the Guardian. Any chance of a reciprocal arrangement?
Jim Barton
Peebles, Scottish Borders
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