The Tory MP suspended by Theresa May for uttering a taboo word

SIR – Five decades ago N F Simpson, of the Theatre of the Absurd, wrote a play entitled The Hole. In it, a character suggested that the term junction box was offensive to the point of being beyond the pale.

Supposing someone decided that the word fly was equally so. It would presumably apply to the word on its own. We would still be able to use the term a fly in the ointment without censure. That phrase, according to the Oxford English Dictionary means “a minor irritation that spoils enjoyment”. A similar term happens to be a nigger in the woodpile.

Can we not be grown-up and recognise that, placed in the said group of words, the N-word implies something entirely different from the offensiveness that would obtain were it used in isolation?

If we cannot recognise this, then we are a stone’s throw and a dictionary definition away from rejecting the word niggardly.

It will be remembered that a few years ago an American politician had to resign his post after he had deployed that word in speech, because of the sheer ignorance on the part of his listeners, who thought the word was related to nigger.

Edward Thomas

Eastbourne, East Sussex

SIR – The expression for which Anne Marie Morris has been condemned was in common use until relatively recently. In these more enlightened times we, and certainly she, will know better. Bringing it out now was unfortunate, and clearly a slip of the tongue.

The reaction of Theresa May in suspending her seems out of all proportion, when a yellow card would have sufficed. It is sad that the Prime Minister couldn’t stand up to the liberal bigots on this occasion.

David Gadbury

East Grinstead, Sussex

SIR – I always thought the purpose of law was to legislate kindness. When we can’t be trusted to be kind to one another, society creates laws to make sure we are.

So, it was really sad to see the uncharitable response from politicians of all parties to the quite obviously unmalicious slip made by Anne Marie Morris who, in a meeting about negotiating Brexit, is reported to have used the expression nigger in the woodpile. Do any of them really believe that she was intentionally racist, or that there was a scintilla of hatred in her heart, when those ill-advised words left her lips?

Yet despite a prompt and full apology she has had the Tory party whip suspended at the behest of Theresa May, Tim Farron has called for her to be suspended from the parliamentary party, and one of her own colleagues (Heidi Allen) has said that “an apology is not good enough”.

Wouldn’t a more proportionate, just and kindly reaction have been a reminder that some expressions are deeply hurtful to others?

William Jupe

Worcester