Re Adrian Chiles’s article (I thought I knew what farmers’ lives were like. I was so wrong, 29 February), many years ago, while at the South of England Agricultural Show, I took my small group of children to the “meet a farmer” stand. When the lady who greeted us said to the children: “I am a farmer. What would you like to ask me?” The look of disbelief on every child’s face caused her to shrug and say: “I’ll go and get my husband.”
Barbara Tomkinson
East Grinstead, West Sussex
• May I thank Andy Beckett for his perceptive profile of shapeshifter Michael Gove (Anderson and Braverman shout loudest, but one man has led the toxification of the Tories: Michael Gove, 2 March). As one of thousands of teachers who suffered from his zealotry, it was a reminder of the dangers presented by politicians who put self-promotion above the public good. Or, as the US satirist Ambrose Bierce put it: “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
David Hughes
Bath
• Rishi Sunak says democracy is under threat (Report, 1 March). I am trying to remember when I got to vote for him as PM.
John Matthews
Newcastle upon Tyne
• As I remember it, the anti-Vietnam war protesters were also regarded as enemies of the state in much the same way (Sunak demands ban on protests at MPs’ homes and crackdown on ‘mob rule’, 28 February).
Richard Rockwood
London
• Out of the blue, I received a letter last week with information on funeral plans. The envelope was stamped “Time sensitive”. Does the sender know something I don’t?
Carol Freeman
Sunderland
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
