Nick Eckford News Today

SIR – Surely the purpose of the Covid Inquiry (Leading Article, December 8) should be to establish how and where the virus started; how well Britain responded to it; and, relative to other nations, the mistakes made and how to do better next time. What we actually hear is a load of deeply personalised questioning, with little apparent purpose beyond blaming and condemning individual people – none of them medical, which is rather puzzling.

SIR – The Acropolis Museum in Athens already displays excellent replicas of the Elgin Marbles (Letters, November 30), along with originals from other parts of the frieze. For conservation reasons, none remain on the Parthenon itself and there can be no possibility of returning them there. It’s just an argument about which museum should house the originals, and which the replicas. Why change present arrangements?

SIR – Are Britain’s staggering legal immigration numbers (“Net migration to UK hits record high”, report, telegraph.co.uk, November 23) a result of deliberate – but covert – government policy, or just sheer incompetence? It would be useful to know before the general election. Either way, it does not look good for the Conservatives. James Thacker Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire

SIR – The problem with Jeremy Hunt’s “biggest business tax cut in modern British history” is that it follows the biggest rise in corporation tax since 1974, presided over by this Government. What’s more, given the “cut” is simply to make the currently temporary measure of full expensing permanent from 2026, it is unlikely Mr Hunt will be in a position to keep his promise, given the polls.

Plus: the Diane Abbott race row; British nationals stuck in Sudan; the value of the state pension; and an evening with Dame Edna Everage

SIR – Terence M Hardman (“The NHS has failed to change with the times”, Letters, April 5) is right that the NHS needs radical reconstruction.