Letters

Men are not animals

Write to the Editor at The Independent on Sunday, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS, or fax to 020-7005 2628, or email to sundayletters@independent.co.uk. Letters should arrive by Thursday noon and include a postal address and daytime telephone number. They may be edited for length and clarity

In your report last week about my new biography of Sir John Mortimer, The Devil's Advocate, you quoted Sir John as alleging that I have "not been completely honest" with some of the people I interviewed for the book and claiming that the thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, whom I quote several times in the book, has written to him and said he had never spoken to me.

In 40 years as a national newspaper journalist and biographer I have never invented a quote, let alone an entire interview. I discussed Mortimer with Freddie, who is an old friend, for nearly an hour on 3 June 2004 at the Montcalm Hotel in Great Cumberland Place, London. I taped the interview with his consent and full knowledge that he would be quoted in the book.

Graham Lord

via email

Another August, another row about exams getting easier. The quantity of facts that students have to learn has certainly declined over the years. Much more classroom time is given over to examination technique. Examination boards, in competition with each other since changes made by the Conservatives, provide teachers with immense quantities of information about how exam questions are marked, which is passed on to the student. In other words, problem solving (how to get high grades) is given priority over accumulation of knowledge.

David Hopker

Canterbury, Kent

You state on your front-page (14 August) that the rise in A-level grade As is from one in five to one in four, and then on page two say that the rise is to nearly 23 per cent, from 22.4 per cent. You have inflated the actual rise by a factor of 8.3.

Ralph Giles

Congresbury, North Somerset

As an A-level student, it seems to me that the reason for the rise in pass rates is that those who are not predicted to get high enough grades are quietly removed from the educational system to improve the statistics, a fact which does not fit into either of the narratives of the two main parties, which are of declining standards and improving ability.

Sam Ross

Newcastle upon Tyne

So DJ Taylor thinks that "Until at least the early 1980s ... 'music', together with professional sport and organised crime, offered the only reliable means of escape from the back street and the factory floor." ("I fought The Fall", ABC, 14 August.)

Apart from the fact that music, sport and crime must be the least reliable routes of escape possible, the statement is enormously patronising towards the millions of working-class people who, since the beginning of the industrial age, have bettered themselves through education, entrepreneurship, self-employment, emigration, and other less superficially glamorous but ultimately rewarding routes. I suggest that in future DJ Taylor sticks to making flip comments about his own type of Hampstead trendy, and avoids writing about a class of whom he obviously knows or understands nothing.

Karen Lane

Ilford, Essex

J anet Bush is wrong in attacking the International Monetary Fund and its management for supposedly having ignored the impact of severe food shortages on Niger's population ("A stimulating lunch while Niger starved", Business, 14 August).

I was a member of the team that accompanied Rodrigo de Rato, the IMF's managing director, on his visit to Niger in May. The food situation was covered during the visit, including at the luncheon that Ms Bush criticises. The Fund team discussed the measures the government could take to meet the needs of the people - particularly the poorest - including freeing up all possible government resources.

Ms Bush accuses the Fund of being "cut off from reality" but then complains when our managing director meets leading figures from Niger's Muslim and traditional chiefs organisations. She conveniently forgets to mention that Mr de Rato spent time on a women's cooperative dairy project during the trip.

The IMF does not specialise in agriculture. There are other international agencies that have that expertise, and they were focused on the looming crisis. The Fund remains fully committed to backing all the countries of the region as they work to overcome the current food shortages.

David Hawley

International Monetary Fund Washington, USA

Kirsty Taylor, managing director of Grampian Country Food's manufacturing plant near Rotherham, blames the closure of her chicken nugget and burger factory on Jamie Oliver's campaign to improve school meals (14 August). The closure is terrible news for the people who have lost their jobs, but there is plenty of room in healthy school dinners for beef burgers made of good quality meat with no additives.

A revolution in the quality of school dinners will create thousands of jobs. School catering staff will regain the skills and status they deserve, and will be able to work longer hours as fresh and unprocessed food will need more preparation in school kitchens.

Sourcing more fresh and unprocessed food will also be good news for Britain's hard-pressed farmers, under pressure from environmentally unfriendly but cheaper imports and the often unhealthy and highly processed food which has played such havoc with the diets and health of our children. For his part in this, Jamie Oliver deserves our heartfelt thanks.

Peter Melchett

Soil Association, Bristol

If the BBC was about to run a TV series encouraging men to treat their female partners like dogs, The Independent on Sunday would rightly condemn this. So why when the genders are reversed is this considered to be perfectly OK? ("Down, boy! How women are learning to control their men", 14 August). Not only this, but your story describes women as "owners" of men, and the men as "beasts" and "animals" - echoing the language of the slave trade. This is shockingly sexist.

S Johnson

London E17