Seagulls

Greetings from Edinburgh, where the air is full of love and seagulls. Mostly seagulls. They soar, they sweep, they swoop above the Old Town, the New Town, the castle and the cathedral. They are everywhere. They strut down the Royal Mile, tourists and rickshaws scattering to make way for them. They descend from on high to attack your bag of chips as you sit at your lunch table in the Assembly Gardens. They are fearless and fabulous and huge. They are herring gulls mostly, with wingspans of up to 5ft (seriously) and lifespans of up to 20 or 30 years (oh yes). I love them, with their beady-eyed authority and mocking squawk that asserts with every piercing cry: ‘I have been around for 30 million years or more and belong here quite as much as you do.

Lessons for the government Sir: James Forsyth suggests that the Prime Minister wishes to avoid sounding as if he is blaming voters for the rise in coronavirus infections (‘Lockdown breakdown’, 26 September). Mr Johnson appears to have already crossed that line. In education we recognise that a teacher has lost control of their class and of their own good judgment when they become exasperated with their pupils for not learning anything. Fortunately, we know a great deal about how to help someone stuck in this negative cycle. Good teachers are predictable and consistent; they know that it is futile to claim that a rule is vitally important if it comes with a list of options and exemptions.

China’s covered Sir: If Charles Moore had contacted the BBC, rather than conducting a fruitless Google search, we would have told him we run three China bureaux — in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong — and that our three mainland correspondents are backed up by production and administrative staff locally. In Hong Kong, we have a team for the BBC’s online Chinese language service. We would have outlined our agenda-setting, and award-winning, reporting on the Uighurs over the last two years, as well as other major issues such as Covid and the situation in Hong Kong. We would have highlighted our BBC2 three-part series on President Xi. And we would have pointed out the audience growth for our Chinese language service, despite our site being officially blocked in China.