The hideous fashion of a suit worn with no tie
SIR – If MPS are going to succumb to the hideous male fashion of wearing suits or jackets without a tie, it is time the fashion industry designed a new form of smart male dress. It should be no more difficult than the invention of a better mouse-trap. Michel Cheetham
Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex
SIR – For casual wear, it is totally in keeping to wear a button-down shirt. A shirt designed to wear with a suit will never sit properly and looks ridiculous without a tie. It will be a failed attempt to appear trendy. Rhona Mogridge Henley-on-thames, Oxfordshire
SIR – I read with sympathy your editorial “Untying the knot” (June 30).
As I celebrate Sunday Mass in cassock, amice, alb, stole and chasuble, I look out over a congregation in shorts and flipflops, glugging water from bottles, and feeding their children crisps.
I wonder if they would be behaving the same way if the Queen came to Mass.
Fr Gerry Drummond
Rochford, Essex
SIR – What a crass decision by the all-inclusive Speaker, John Bercow, to allow MPS to pitch up with open collars.
When we have full council here in King’s Lynn we all, men and women, make the effort to look good. It makes one act in a more dignified manner. I can’t imagine that Capitol Hill will follow Westminster’s suit.
Shame on Mr Bercow for yet another example of dumbing down by stealth.
Avril Wright
Snettisham, Norfolk
SIR – Given the current incumbents, I wonder if it’s possible to dumb down Parliament any further. Roger Hiscock
Hayling Island, Hampshire
SIR – Mr Bercow has decreed that ties are no longer essential. How long before the same conclusion is reached about him?
Charles Barrington
Woodbridge, Suffolk
SIR – On a sweltering day in 1974, as an MP of a few days’ standing, I received a summons to see the chief whip about a “serious matter”.
I trepidatiously entered the room, to be told that the opposition chief whip had complained that I had removed my jacket in the Members’ Dining Room. As I began to protest, Bob Mellish said: “Don’t worry lad, I told him to f––– off.”
Mike Thomas
Brill, Buckinghamshire
SIR – What a pleasure to see male MPS no longer forced to wear a tie. The time should be gone when men must dress more uniformly and uncomfortably than women.
Dare we hope that Wimbledon will now drop its inappropriate and unhealthy requirement for (only male) linesmen and umpires to wear ties while standing for hours in the summer sun?
Dr Steven Field Wokingham, Berkshire