A plea for decency

To the best of my knowledge, he wasn’t rude or foul-mouthed, he had no connection with drugs or alcohol, and he kept his self-respect and dignity.

A few miles along the coast is the home of a 21-year-old studying history at Cambridge University. Last year, he went out on the London streets to protest about tuition fees. Fortified by drugs and alcohol, he was loud, threatening and foul-mouthed.

He laid siege to an official car carrying Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, threw a bin at it, and got on the bonnet of the escort car, obscuring the driver’s view.

He also helped to ransack an Oxford Street store and earlier used the flag on the Cenotaph memorial to the war-dead as a swing. He has just been given a richly deserved prison sentence for the violent disorder.

I am just making a comparison between the two.

At a time when bankers, the press, police and politicians appear dubious and even the corridors of Parliament are reported to be reverberating with crass rudeness and foul-mouthing, I hope that, under the mucky exterior, there are enough people who can generally go about their business with decency and social acceptability, to prevent the future becoming as bleak as it currently looks.

Jacqueline Deeks

Wendy Ridge

Rustington