It is disappointing to see such a large price rise from British Gas (Report, 1 August), but let’s not slam these suppliers for being greedy. They’re inefficient and outmoded – and it’s customers who pay the price. Energy doesn’t have to be this expensive, as proven by the dozens of newer suppliers with lower costs and better service. The only way to fix the broken energy market and the stranglehold of the big six is with the urgent introduction of an energy price cap which will benefit all families.

Greg Jackson

CEO, Octopus Energy

• While you note that England cricketer Moeen Ali’s hat-trick to win the Oval Test broke several records (Sport, 1 August), you fail to mention an important one. He became the first England cricketer with a beard ever to take a Test hat-trick. The best that had been previously managed was a moustache, and that was Billy Bates in 1883.

Keith Flett

London

• Boots’ prudery wasn’t limited to the selling of contraceptives (Letters, 27 July). In the 1980s their photo services kept a beady eye open for potentially prurient images, on one occasion redacting a print of the sculpted pub sign of Ribchester’s anatomically correct White Bull, presumably lest it be witnessed by any of the directors’ daughters.

Austen Lynch

Garstang, Lancashire

• I remember a 2-4-6-8 chant (Music review, The critics, 31 July) which was a serenade to policemen accompanying gay rights marches. It went “2-4-6-8, is that copper really straight? 3-5-7-9, ain’t his uniform divine.”

David Alexander

Leatherhead, Surrey

• Gerry Wyld understates the Liberal Democrats’ historic enablement of Conservative hegemony (Letters, 31 July). The UK Liberal party, in various guises, has frustrated the establishment of a progressive politics since the general election of 1922.

Harvey Taylor

Saxthorpe, Norfolk

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