Letter of the week: Citizens of somewhere

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Surely Alex Niven’s article starts from a false premise? To claim that a British citizen’s country of citizenship is the UK is to misunderstand the nature of the state we live in. It is most certainly not “our weirdly uncredited true nation state”. The UK is one of the few multinational states surviving in Europe.

I can only think of Switzerland as an alternative, but there used to be more. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and the Austro-Hungarian empire spring to mind. It is the confusion of “state” with “country” that brings about the problem, and Niven should be more aware of it.

Reading this article from the western side of Offa’s Dyke, the Anglocentrism underlying it shines like a beacon. The UK was created by English imperialism. Its demise began in 1921 when Ireland left the Union. The future is uncertain, but there is no reason to assume that the current configuration will survive.
John Young, Usk, Wale

Alba’s autonomy

Alex Niven’s article on the post-Britain era was both fascinating and insightful. While questioning the likelihood of a further independence referendum in Scotland in the near future, he nevertheless suggested that “polling on the subject among Scots is still finely poised”.

At the elections on 7 May the pro-independence parties gained 41 per cent of the vote on a 53 per cent turnout – hardly a ringing endorsement of independence. It is also likely that some voters backing the SNP or Greens were expressing their discontent at the Labour government in Westminster rather than casting a positive voter for independence itself.

Moreover, when Scots are asked directly whether Scotland should leave the UK, the response is often less finely balanced than in the wording preferred by many pollsters: whether Scotland should be an independent country.
Graeme Youngson, Aberdeen, Scotland

Dividing lines

I found Anoosh Chakelian’s report on the Jewish community of Golders Green an accurate portrayal of a community in a deep state of fear, anger and grief.

I work just down the road, in one of the largest Jewish areas in Britain, on which two Iranian nationals have been charged of spying. I know what it feels like to be scared about your safety, and to wonder when and where the next attack is coming.

It is important, though, to recognise that Chakelian’s piece is a portrayal of a particular slice of the Jewish community. Their fears and opinions are as valid as anyone else’s, but much of the Jewish community – myself included – views chants of “Keir Starmer, Jew harmer” as inaccurate, childish, and deeply unhelpful.
Zac Bates Fisher, Beckenham, Bromley, Greater London

Doggone greyhounds

I’m glad that Luke O’Reilly, spending time at the Romford dog racing, noted the shocking death rate of greyhounds. Commercial dog racing is now banned in Wales and Scotland thanks largely to pressure from their Green parties. In England, and notwithstanding his encounter with members of a bookclub, O’Reilly noted a prevailing Hogarthian atmosphere. This England indeed. Although I note that in Northern Ireland, there is no regulation of dog racing.
Helene Witcher, Stirling

Party animal

Will Dunn perfectly identifies the worthlessness of party-political broadcasts. Surely the most disastrous must be one from the end of the Blair years, for the local elections. It featured clips of David Cameron spliced with a cartoon chameleon riding a bike and whistling the Culture Club song “Karma Chameleon”. The lyrics were sung: “I’m a man without conviction, I’m a man who doesn’t know.” Polling afterwards indicated that some people were annoyed that it completely ignored the local elections, while some were annoyed at a blatant attack rather than a promotion of Labour. But the majority reaction was that the chameleon was very clever, very cute and a cut above most politicians; if only we knew what party it was standing for.
Steve Kerry, Worcestershire

Slim pickings

As I read Tom McTague’s column about the possible runners and riders in a future leadership election, I couldn’t help but reflect that Labour has never fielded such a weak line-up of potential leaders.

It seems clear that if Angela Rayner or Andy Burnham win, the majority of the right-wing press will just dust off their “Corbyn Mark II” articles and paint them both as swivel-eyed enemies of the people. Wes Streeting believes he is the MP’s choice but much will be made of his previous positivity towards Peter Mandelson.

In 1976, Labour conducted a leadership election featuring the most able selection of candidates in modern political history. Fifty years on and the cupboard is looking very bare indeed.
Jeff Howells, London SE25

Yankee Doodle dodgy

Andrew Marr quotes a quirky view of nationalism by the poet Norman MacCaig. My favourite, from the American Civil War, is the rejoinder to General Nathaniel Banks, who tried to stop his men running away from Stonewall Jackson’s army, saying: “Stop, men! Don’t you love your country?” One soldier, while continuing to retreat, shouted back: “Yes by God, and I’m trying to get back to it just as fast as I can!”
Tom Stubbs, Surbiton, Greater London

**Going coo-coo-coo**

Sorry, Tom. The bird that goes “coo-coo-coo” is not a wood pigeon, which has a more complicated song, but a collared dove (handsome bird with a neat black collar). Like you, we enjoyed its song and used to believe that it followed us around the country. A friend who found the song irritating rather than restful reckoned it was saying: “I’ve found you.”

I’m not sure how much faith I have in the Merlin app. Frequently, when I can hear a bird clearly, Merlin refuses to acknowledge that there is anything around. At other times it offers improbable suggestions. Last week it found a red-necked phalarope on the Cockermouth Greenway.
Margaret Fox, Cockermouth

I agree with Tom; the wood pigeon’s soft and unchanging cooing is my favourite bird song. When waking in the morning, I often call back: “Bake two loaves Taffy/Bake two loaves Taffy/Bake two loaves Taffy/Bake.” Both male and female wood pigeons coo, almost always three repeats and then a single extra note. What a shocking suggestion that a possible translation of this wondrous soothing call could be: “My toe bleeds Betty!”

Perhaps one week you could devote the New Statesman poem to translations of the wood pigeon’s call. There must be dozens of local, much-loved variations.
Sarah Backhouse, Frome, Somerset

WikiTweaks

Nicholas Lezard never fails to amaze. How and when did he acquire the skills to self-edit his own Wikipedia entry? Might he consider, I wonder, offering to edit some of his less nifty friend’s entries, too? Or, for that matter, maybe even earn a spare Bitcoin or two doing so as a service to the posher ones?
Richard Berengarten, Cambridge