The highly skilled toolmaker knew his worth
SIR – Toolmakers have been in the news, thanks to Sir Keir Starmer’s father.
I worked for a large metal presswork company in the 1960s and toolmakers were some of the best paid employees, many earning more than their senior managers.
It was a very skilled job commanding a high hourly rate because of supply and demand. The toolmakers, by choice in the main, were hourly paid rather than salaried, so that with enhanced overtime rates they could earn considerable amounts. The salaried did not have that choice.
Incidentally, a standard working week was 48 hours, and it was not unusual to book 60 hours a week. James Rann
London SW1
SIR – I read that Sir Keir Starmer intends to save £1.7billion for the taxpayer by removing charitable status from private schools.
However, that will presumably result in higher school fees and more parents sending their children to state schools.
So the saving will be eaten up by extra costs on what already appears to be an overloaded education system. Would not it make more sense to allow tax relief on school fees, so as to encourage more pupils out of the state system and relieve some of the burden of overcrowded schools?
John Pearn
South Molton, Devon
SIR – I struggled to read Sir Keir Starmer’s essay, but one phrase impressed me as newly minted in the pile of old, dull cliche: “But the arc of history will not bend towards us unless we force it to.”
What does this mean? Is it a neo-leninist rallying cry or a darkly Francoist threat?
Michael Downing
Sheffield, South Yorkshire