Are you Waddle in disguise?

Your report of Chris Waddle’s nihilistic tweet, “Well done Theresa May. Now let’s leave with no deal” (A team of two halves: Europe debate splits 1986 World Cup squad, 14 December) reminded me of watching England on TV during the 1986 World Cup, when I should have been working on my contribution to the TUC’s Congress Report. My resulting draft was so threadbare it was returned with a note from my boss: “This is to Congress Report what Chris Waddle is to the England attack.” I had to rewrite it all.
Jonathan Michie
President, Kellogg College, Oxford

• Simon Jenkins writes (Journal, 21 November) that after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 “the Hanoverians left Europe well alone”. Britain was at war with European states in 1739-48, 1756-63 (Seven Years’ War), 1778-83 (after Britain declared war on France due to French support of the American revolution) and 1803-15 (Napoleonic). It’s remiss of Simon Jenkins to forget 1739-48, the war of Jenkins’ Ear. As for the claim that the Holy Roman Empire “lived mostly at peace”, Wikipedia lists 52 of its terrible wars.
Michael Lipton
Brighton

• The canal boat Gordon Bennett and its captain Ian Grieve only seem to make it into the letters pages during spring and summer. Whatever happens to them during these dark months?
Ivor Morgan
Lincoln

• Although the proposal of a citizens’ assembly is a lovely idea (Letters, 17 December), the problem with us ordinary members of the public who work in the gig economy is that we’ve got quite a lot on at the moment.
Ian Grieve
Gordon Bennett, Llangollen canal

• A sign of the times, one supposes, that “the people who make Christmas” (G2, 17 December) did not include a priest of any denomination.
Terry Philpot
Limpsfield Chart, Surrey

• I presume everyone knows that Moscow is in north Cumbria (Letters, 17 December).
Barry Norman
Drighlington, West Yorkshire

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