Road Test
Leamington Spa Roger Howes: I passed my driving test 50 years ago. Since then there has been no obligation upon me to show that I have updated, or even maintained, my skills. Over the same period my vehicles have been subjected to annual inspections for road worthiness. Is this not bizarre?
The Times
Late Wisdom
Reston Va Eric Nielson: Realpolitik is policy based on practical rather than moral principles. Our intervention in Iraq destroyed the status quo, which had contained radically dissimilar ethnic groups. The practical road in Syria is keeping the genie in the bottle. President Bashar Assad maintains a terrible order that prevents an even worse unleashing of anarchy. The simplistic homilies about intervention in Syria on humanitarian grounds ignore the now evident truths of its cascade effects.
The New York Times
Fair Spirit
West Sussex Gill Palengat: Two athletes showed the spirit of the Olympics when a 5,000 metre runner stopped mid-race to help a fallen rival. In Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, I knew Judy Guinness, an Olympic fencer. In the 1932 Olympics, she was declared winner of the final duel, and was awarded the gold medal. She pointed out to the judges that they had wrongly decided in her favour twice. She thus lost the bout to the Austrian, Ellen Preis, and was instead awarded the silver medal. This gesture was typical of Judy. It’s good to see that her spirit lives on.
The Telegraph
