Free from fear or favour
Tracking and cookies. WHY?

Letters – January 2026

Submit a letter for consideration about this month’s edition by emailing the Editors: Miss Hardeep Matharu and Mr Peter Jukes on letters@bylinetimes.com

Fergie Fan

Further to A Friend for Fergie in your December issue (‘On the Record’, 13 November 2025), I’m pleased to see Sarah given due space to speak out in your magazine. As I recently had the honour to become the Sarah Ferguson Fan Club’s one millionth member, it’s about time! Might have gone down better in your April issue though …

Kevin Sleight

A More Human Approach

In response to Stephen Unwin’s article Follow the Money: Why the Right Weaponises the Costs of Supporting Learning Disabled People (13 November 2025), the right not only weaponises the costs of supporting learning disabled individuals, it questions their value as humans. As a social worker within the ‘All Wales Strategy’ in 1983, and later in public services for many years, it is clear to me that any disability that we live or work with has the capacity to humanise us – and for that we should be profoundly grateful.

Mandrake – Vacant Chair

Dimbleby had in the past talked about the monarchy as ‘an irrational system’ and turned down an offer to front the King’s Coronation
Tim Walker

Zeitgeisters – Caspar Henderson

Caspar Henderson cut his teeth as an environmental journalist working first on the BBC Radio 4 flagship programme Costing the Earth, and then as a senior editor at openDemocracy.
John Mitchinson