The Spectator

The unclued lights are the former and current names of various products: 2/8A, 12/36, 16/32, 17/34, 13/22.

Putting out fires The Brecon Beacons National Park Authority said it was renaming the park because the word ‘beacon’ implies carbon emissions and ‘does not fit with the ethos’. — Many hills in Britain carry the name ‘beacon’ thanks to chains of fires which were lit up to warn of approaching invasion. In Devon alone, 39 beacon sites have been identified. Most famously, beacons were lit in July 1588 to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada after it was spotted off Land’s End, although there is no record of how many fires were lit nor how quickly it took the message to reach London. — Not that the name of the Brecon Beacons really appears to be changing at all.

Pension point Sir: I have just read Kate Andrews’s article on junior doctors’ pay (‘Sick pay’, 15 April). While not wishing to get drawn into the rights or wrongs of their strike action, may I point out that in respect of the NHS pension scheme, for the sake of balance, the employee’s pension contribution also needs to be taken into account? The employer may well pay a 20 per cent contribution, but a junior doctor on a salary of either £29,000 or £37,000 (both figures quoted in the article) will pay 9.8 per cent of salary with a consequent reduction in take-home pay. John Etherington Wilsden, West Yorkshire Coach trip Sir: It was good to see mention of the Speaker’s state coach in your leading article (‘Reign or shine’, 15 April).

Home President Joe Biden of the United States visited Northern Ireland, shook hands with party leaders, talked with Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (though not about a trade agreement), and went on to the Republic of Ireland, for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael resigned as auditors to the Scottish National party. Its decision coincided with a police search of the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh following the arrest and release without charge of Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive and the husband of Nicola Sturgeon, who was the SNP leader and first minister.

The couple were VICTORIA (23, 36, 37, 45) and ALBERT (2, 9, 17, 20, 46). 7 was the link. First prize Kenneth Allen, Riddlesden, W. YorksRunners-up P. and A.

Too broad a Church Sir: I am not implacably hostile to Justin Welby; I share Christian empathy with the Archbishop’s earnest struggles to attract a spiritually dead nation back to the Church of England as described by Dan Hitchens’s article (‘The lost shepherds’, 8 April). However I cannot agree with his strategy. A liberal church is doomed to failure because it’s selling something that we already have. I ask our bishops: what is the Church’s USP? What does it offer that we can’t get elsewhere? The Church used to stand apart as a bastion against a hostile world, but if all it does is follow along behind modern secular fads then it is admitting its own redundancy. If you permit everything, you stand for nothing.

Major mistake Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that he was instrumental in establishing the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland, for which Tony Blair is perhaps given too much credit. Moreover, it is difficult to name any of Major’s successors who didn’t leave No. 10 without black marks on their record. Ranking PMs is something for history.

Falling at fences Activists from an animal rights group were secretly filmed apparently plotting to disrupt the Grand National, protesting in part at the number of horses killed at the event. – Since 1839, 88 horses have died either during the race or were put down as a result of injuries. Four died in the past decade and nine in the decade before that. The deadliest race was 1954, when the event was held on soft ground. Of the 29 horses entered, only nine finished. Four died. The longest periods without a fatality were 1908-22, 1892-1900, 1873-81, 1961-66 and 2013-18. State of the unions How much are public sector unions costing the taxpayer?

RUNNERS (10), ANSWER (28) and MEADOW (29D) defined FIELD; PROVISIONS (18), MANAGE (38) and PASSENGER (30) defined FARE; and THRUSH (11), PICNIC (16) and COMPILER (20) defined FIELDFARE (above the grid) First prize Steve Reszetniak, Margate, Kent Runners-up Alan Norman, Impington, Cambridge; Amanda Spielman, London SW4.

Home Humza Yousaf was elected leader of the Scottish National party, beating Kate Forbes by 52 per cent to 48 per cent after Ash Regan was eliminated; MSPs then elected him First Minister. Of 19 transgender prisoners in custody in Scotland, 12 began their transition ‘after their date of admission’, according to data obtained under Freedom of Information laws. The National Executive Committee of the Labour party voted 22 to 12 to bar Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next election. The terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland was raised from substantial to severe, meaning an attack was highly likely.

Fooling about When did the tradition of 1 April pranks begin? One theory is that it derives from the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria, which involved games and pranks – although that was held on the spring equinox, which falls more than a week earlier than 1 April.  — In Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, a fox fools a cockerel ‘since March began thirty days and two’. Another explanation is that ‘All Fools’ Day’ referred to backward country folk in 16th-century France who didn’t realise that the adoption of the Julian calendar had moved New Year’s Day from 25 March (a week’s festivities used to end on 1 April) to 1 January. However, the first reference to a ‘poisson d’Avril’ was in a poem from 1508, before the calendar change was made.