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So David Laws, reputedly a millionaire, is likely to receive a mild reprimand for misclaiming £40,000 in parliamentary expenses (Report, 9 May). Barnsley MP Eric Illsley misclaimed £14,000 and was sentenced to one year in jail. Why is it in this scandal that only Labour MPs appear to have to face the full might of the law, when many other wealthy MPs were either allowed to pay money back or get a mild slap on the wrist?
Eileen and Michael Sanderson
Barnsley
• Jackie Ashley writes (Comment, 9 May) that Cameron's Tories might advantageously engineer an early election. They will have to get a move on – the fixed term parliaments bill, setting the date of the next election as 7 May 2015, has already reached its Lords' report stage. Of course, it could be repealed, or a phoney vote of no self-confidence somehow organised – but this might be a bit embarrassing, even for Cameron. Nick Clegg is the sponsor of this bill – prescient, or what?
John Stilwell
Penzance, Cornwall
• I'm not sure who garbled it but, as reported by you, Paddy Ashdown's alleged quote from Mark Twain makes no sense (Report, 6 May). "It is a swift little thing a lie," he says, "it's halfway round the world before it gets its boots on." Quite why a lie needs boots at all when it has done OK without them for the first part of the journey is unclear. The original saying is actually: "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." And it wasn't Mark Twain who said it first, but Charles Haddon Spurgeon in a sermon delivered on 1 April 1855.
Karl Sabbagh
Newbold on Stour, Warwickshire
• Thanks to John Flynn for giving Do The Standing Still a mention (Letters, 9 May). It was recorded in 1976, though, just to be pedantic.
Tony Barnes
Founder member of The Table,
Grouville, Jersey
• Is it possible for members of the public to take out a superinjunction against celebrities (Report, 10 May)? I would very much like to never hear what Katie Price is doing ever again.
Kate Alley
London
