Letter: Anglo-Saxon upset

Sir: How on earth can someone with the name Hamish McRae refer with a straight face to "we Anglo-Saxons" ("The dawning of the age of the Anglo-Saxon", 7 January)?

The term "Anglo-Saxon" as an economic category is deeply irritating, inaccurate and highly un-PC. Given that the US is the main country thus denoted, I'm surprised that our American cousins, sensitive and literal- minded as they are in these matters, haven't fired volleys of criticism at this racist and WASP-privileging epithet.

If it is true that the US and the UK - we may also cite New Zealand and the Celtic tiger, Ireland - share a common and distinctive economic model, why not call it "Anglophone"? Not only is this more neutral; it also draws attention, as does Hamish McRae, to the role that happening to speak English has played in these countries' current good fortune.

AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER

Shipley,

West Yorkshire