That the BBC allowed Lord Lawson to voice an opposing opinion after Al Gore and others had spoken on climate change matters has raised furious objections.

Most alarmingly, the popular science presenters, Professors Brian Cox and Jim al-Khalili, have declared that such opinions as those of Lord Lawson (quite widely held in the scientific community), should be, in effect, suppressed.

The science, they say, is known, and should not be questioned.

But the whole edifice of scientific knowledge is based on question. That is what science is all about. If a question cannot be answered, or a fact contrary to hypothesis is raised and cannot be answered, the theory must be, in some fashion, in error, and a satisfactory answer produced. A process which is, in principle, without end.

Our knowledge of the manner in which the global climate changes are brought about is largely in question.

The present disgraceful attempt to suppress discussion is little different from the years of “house arrest” and prohibition from the discussion of heliocentricity, imposed by Pope Urban VIII on Galileo in the seventeenth century.

As Marie Curie observed, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is to be understood”.

Richard Phillips

Newbury

The truth about inheritance tax

Following recent articles about the late Bruce Forsyth not paying inheritance tax, before publishing any articles or letters criticising someone who can't defend themselves please get your facts right.

He left his estate to his wife – this is normal 99 per cent of the time and totally legal. What his wife does with the money is up to her. If she does decide to give it away, she will have to survive seven years after the gift for the gift to be totally exempt from any inheritance tax. If she should die in the seven years after Bruce's death, inheritance tax would be payable.

Kevin A Render

Address supplied

An interesting theory

Some years ago on a trip to Washington I was told the apocryphal tale that no matter how radical a new US President promised to be, as soon as they entered the White House several national security figures escorted them down to the basement where, without any conversation whatsoever, they were seated and shown a video of the assassination of President Kennedy; they were then returned back up to the Oval Office, again without a word being said.

Having now seen President Trump change his once-radical position to one more in line with the American establishment on such issues as Russia, President Assad, NATO and now Afghanistan, I do wonder just how “apocryphal” that tale of a trip to the basement really was!

Colin Burke

Manchester

Dog nation

Almost every family we know either already has a dog, or is considering the acquisition of a dog. Perhaps inspired by John Noakes' recent death, are we mutating from Adam Smith's nation of shopkeepers into a nation of “shep”keepers?

Kim Thonger

Northants

Big Ben is the least of our worries

I read with some bemusement about the emotional reactions of some MPs to the silencing of Big Ben for maintenance.

Odd that there is not the same choked-up response to child poverty, the increase in homelessness, the drug epidemic in our over-crowded prisons, the failure to improve literacy rates, increasing use of food banks, the looming economic crisis and personal-debt tsunami, rising prices and flatlining wages, poor infrastructure, the increasing dangers caused by problems of NHS staffing levels...

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

Time will tell

It won't take four years if Big Ben is repaired around the clock.