The Spectator

IQ and social mobility Sir: It seems not to have occurred to our leaders that ability is not evenly distributed across the social classes. In a meritocratic society, employers will try to recruit the most able candidates into the top positions. There, they meet other bright people, pair off and have children. As Professor Plomin’s work clearly demonstrates (‘The Truth about Intelligence’, 27 July), these children inherit much of their intelligence from their parents, so like them, they succeed in the education system and end up getting top jobs. Middle-class kids therefore tend to outperform working-class kids, not because they are unfairly privileged, but because they are likely to be brighter.

Art by the seaside The Kent seaside resort of Herne Bay staged the parade of a urinal through the town to celebrate its connection with Marcel Duchamp, who spent a month there in 1913 and credited the place with rekindling his artistic career — a postcard to a friend declared: ‘I am not dead. I am in Herne Bay.’ Some other artists and their favoured English seaside resorts: — J.M.W. Turner frequently visited Margate for inspiration, after first being sent there as an 11-year-old boy. — John Constable lived in Brighton between 1824 and 1828. — Vincent van Gogh taught at a small boarding school in Ramsgate in 1876, from where he wrote to his brother Theo about helping the children to build sandcastles on the beach. — L.S.