LETTER: Starved of sense

From Dr Gary Slapper

Sir: It may be that being so caught up with the philosophical niceties of whether Phraedrus is an early or late work of Plato, Julius Tomin has overlooked a less abstract problem regarding the dimension of time ("Pub philosopher on hunger strike over Plato clash", 27 November).

The power of the so-called "hunger strike" is that it represents the road to martyrdom, so that the authority whose view or policy is to be converted is made to capitulate before it has a death on its doorstep. If you say at the outset of not eating (as Tomin has done) that the hardship is "scheduled for seven days", then the event is merely a farce. Living in a barrel, like Diogenes, might be a more enduring stunt.

Yours faithfully,

Gary Slapper

Law School

Staffordshire University

Stoke-on-Trent

27 November