With friends like Taki ...
From Manuel Escott
Sir: Taki’s column in which he hails the election of Pope Benedict (High life, 30 April) is one of his most richly comic to date. The German Holy Father will, I am sure, be gratified to know that Taki for one will be standing with him as he moves to arrest the world’s ‘spiritual decline’. What I’d like to know is at which point on the road to Damascus did this former cokehead, but still drunken old lecher, find moral probity? Taki’s rant against what he perceives to be societal evils calls out for a whole new definition of the word ‘hypocrisy’.
Manuel Escott
Toronto, Canada
Hitler’s canine guinea pig
From Joan Kilford
Sir: Charles Moore made an attempt to convince us that Hitler killed his dog out of pity, in case she fell into Russian hands (The Spectator’s Notes, 30 April). People present in Hitler’s bunker bear witness to the fact that Hitler gave his dog cyanide capsules in order to see what his own death would be like (so much for his love of animals). The result of this was that Hitler chose to shoot himself.
Joan Kilford
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
Literary omission
From Graham Cooke
Sir: Leo McKinstry’s interesting article comparing Michael Portillo and Lord Rosebery (‘The trouble with Michael’, 7 May) surprisingly stated that the latter was the only prime minister since Disraeli to have been a successful writer. What about Sir Winston Churchill? Graham Cooke
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