Police officer’s name baselessly blackened

SIR – I am dismayed at the news of a Metropolitan police officer facing investigation for using the phrase “whiter than white” (report, September 15).

This is a common expression which has nothing to do with race. It is a ridiculous waste of the time of a valuable officer and of the resources used in carrying out the investigation.

Where will it end – whitewash, white lie, white wine, or black cloud, blackball, Black Friday?

Or can I expect Christian churches, which have long used the colour white as a symbol of purity, to be prosecuted for a racial hate crime? David Millar

Cowes, Isle of Wight

SIR – What is this world coming to when someone makes a complaint against a police officer, who might lose his job for saying “whiter than white”?

I suppose the next case will be when someone says they like to see things in “black and white”.

It is high time we all lightened up and stopped playing the racist card at any opportunity. Conversation is being handicapped by this constant need to

adhere to political correctness when we talk. David Hartridge

Groby, Leicestershire

SIR – In the case of the Metropolitan police officer who allegedly used this phrase, I wonder if it might help the investigating Independent Office for Police Conduct to know that in the Old Testament (Isaiah, chapter 1), sins are said to be as scarlet, becoming as white as snow after the Lord forgives them.

In that sense, whiter than white describes a state of impeccable faultlessness without the remotest racial association. Dr RG Thomas

Trowbridge, Wiltshire

SIR – Whiteness was the symbol of purity – that is why brides wear white – and so to be whiter than white is to be completely without fault and beyond criticism.

That time and expense should be wasted on such a complaint is actually an indictment of the Metropolitan Police. Alan Neades

Piddletrenthide, Dorset