Is going tieless a slip in Parliamentary standards?

SO SPEAKER John Bercow has sanctioned Lib Dem MP Tom Brake’s decision to go tieless in the House of Commons. There are (or were) many unwritten dress codes that, sadly, are being eroded. I remember an evening at the ballet some years ago when a couple arrived in evening attire. There was an audible ripple from those seated in their jeans and sweaters. Little did they realise that it was they who were guilty of not observing an unwritten, but now deemed ‘outdated’, dress code, and they were ridiculing a couple who had dressed for the occasion. No doubt in due course an audible ripple will pass through the Commons when an MP turns up in leather shoes, a suit, collar and tie. anTHonY f. loWe, nottingham. I ReaLISeD standards had reached a nadir when I was asked, ‘are you a lawyer?’ by a teenage girl because I was wearing a dark suit. I told her I was not, to which she replied: ‘But you is dressed like one.’ With MPs allowed to go tieless in the Commons, is this the start of the slippery slope? Before work, I sit in the yard of a building containing many companies. Watching the wretchedly dressed staff going inside is very depressing: women in torn jeans and denim jackets, hair not combed; men in shorts or dirty trousers, with unpolished shoes. Such sloppy dress, yet their employers tolerate it. Let’s hope they don’t have to meet the public. BarrY carroll, london se28. IS BERCOW doing this to appease Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn who, as we know, does not like wearing ties? I sense another drop in standards. MIKe Jones, south Witham, lincs.