Maggie Chapman has two contradictory positions on safeguarding

It is a persuasive argument. However, the premise that powerful men exploit institutions, loopholes and moral fashions to obtain access and impunity sits uneasily with Ms Chapman’s previously stated positions when it comes to gender identity law and policy, where calls for clear safeguards have been characterised as prejudice rather than treated as a routine feature of institutional duty of care.

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Anyone who doubts that sexual predators pay attention to, and seek to exploit, gender politics should note that correspondence involving Epstein included encouragement of work on “transgender biology” and engagement with a scientist on that theme. Whatever one’s wider views on gender politics, the broader point is straightforward: predatory men look for the path of least resistance.

Systems that protect the rich are also systems that reward credulity. If we want fewer Epsteins, we should be tightening objective, enforceable safeguards – especially where women, girls and vulnerable people rely on institutions – not loosening them, as Ms Chapman has argued for elsewhere.

Brian Forsyth
Edinburgh

UNUSUALLY, I must take issue with a statement in Maggie Chapman’s article, her sweeping generalisation that “every single woman you know has faced threats of violence”.

During my long and extremely varied experiences, which brought me into contact with probably more men than women, in various work situations, a wide range of leisure activities and extensive travel, I cannot recall a single occasion when I met violence or even the threat of it, nor have I ever known a woman who has.

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Somehow, I have managed to reach my mid-eighties still with that good fortune, and am still finding new friends, many of them men, including several at least half my age. Perhaps in all that time I must have sometimes been the recipient of a few unpleasant remarks, but probably simply laughed and treated them as banter, with a response in kind. Early in life I realised that if the intent was to hurt, then the speaker was not worth my time and was best ignored.

If Maggie Chapman’s statement is accurate, then I must be the exception to the rule and have led a charmed life.

Name and address supplied

YOU report that Palantir was awarded a £241 million contract, with a further investment of £750m pledged by the Westminster government, to establish its “European headquarters” for defence in the UK, creating 350 jobs. That is a total of £991m investment in a US firm at a time when surely every sensible European country is looking for alternatives to US companies when it comes to defence.

After all, you’d want your very expensive kit to work in the event the US pulls the plug, which doesn’t seem to be guaranteed these days, if it ever was.

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So is there any demand for a “European headquarters” for Palantir? Or has Palantir plumped for the UK because no-one else will have them? There will doubtless be justifications from the Ministry of Defence as to why this did not go out to tender (I’d guess not including “Peter Mandelson asked us to”, so more probably along the lines of “there was no other firm able to offer what we needed” – as in, “we’ve let this firm and its lobbyists persuade us that this is what we need and that there is no other firm able to do it so as a result no other firm will get the chance to tell us otherwise”). But even without going out to tender, there should be a decent business case for awarding the contract. 350 jobs at a cost of £991m is £2.81m per job. That doesn’t seem like value for money.

Lisa Smith
Newton Stewart

JAMES Walker’s article on the subject of Harry Potter Tourism (Feb 15) makes interesting reading and he raises important issues. However, he mentions that the Harry Potter tour he went on in Greyfriars Kirkyard headed to the far end of the cemetery “which neighbours Fettes College”!

Fettes College is nearly three miles away from Greyfriars Kirkyard! The school which is next to Greyfriars Kirkyard is George Heriot’s School.

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George Heriot was an Edinburgh goldsmith and he was banker to King James VI of Scotland. When he died he bequeathed a fortune to establish a charitable school for “puir, faitherless bairns”. George Heriot’s School is a magnificent 17th-century piece of architecture with Renaissance features and turrets.

Fettes College looks completely different from George Heriot’s as its design was based on a Loire Chateau with 19th-century Scottish Baronial features. It has been mooted by some that both of these school buildings may have influenced JK Rowling’s idea for Hogwarts.

Graham Sutherland
Edinburgh