Rather it is seen as a dangerous haemorrhage threatening the health of the academy. Low morale, job insecurity and the competition between departments for limited resources have made it possible for the new style of management to create an unhealthy silence on our campuses This will harm both teaching and research. This new corporatism is having a covert but malign influence on the working lives of teachers and students Debate is no longer the life-blood of the university. Francis Beckett ("Silencing our academics", 2 June) describes a disturbing cultural shift in universities but concentrates on the spectacular examples. I describe the incident in detail in my autobiography, A Poet in the Family. As Ros Wynne-Jones suggests, I do believe a small number of Eliot's poems are morally and aesthetically despicable because of the diabolism of anti-Semitic excrescences. But I should like to go on record that I am one who admires much else of Eliot's poetry and, indeed, I consider myself in his debt. Dannie AbseLondon NW11.

I did not sit on a row behind T S Eliot at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the 1930s when Emanuel Litvinoff read out his fine incendiary poem ("Poets clash over `anti- Semitic' Eliot", 2 June) I'm old, but not that old Litvinoff's reading took place in the 1950s. In the London area, there are rumours about the future of free rail passes for senior citizens, because the new private operators will not be obliged to continue honouring them. Most worrying of all, the new private operators have to keep their shareholders happy with decent profits while reducing the amount of subsidy they claim from the government. It is hard to see how they can achieve both those objectives while at the same time improving services and avoiding cuts. Graham LarkbeyRailway Development SocietyLondon N6. This means existing first and last trains could be axed, and service frequencies could be cut in the interests of profit.

Already we are seeing cases where stations run by one operator do not display details of other operators' trains. The minimum service levels which private operators have to provide are not even as good as those currently operating. Not surprisingly, Sir George Young, the Transport Secretary, paints a very rosy picture of rail privatisation ("Rail: the minister's answer", 2 June). In reality, the brave new world is not half as wonderful as he makes out. Might I suggest to Mr Ascherson's friend, who finds "British Isles" more offensive than "mainland", that perhaps Britain is named after the Isles and not vice versa. The expression "British Isles" need not then be demeaning to the inhabitants of the other islands. In support of this view it could be noted that "Great Britain" would be the geographically correct name for the largest of the group of islands John Riseley County Antrim.