You write that "David Cameron insisted that the proposal would not create privileged access to universities for rich students" and quote him as saying "university access is about being able to learn, not about being able to pay" (David Willetts on back foot in cash-for-places row, 10 May). Surely this is disingenuous, as rich students (or, to be more accurate, the children of rich parents) have privileged access to universities already by virtue of attending fee-paying schools.
Why is the principle contained in Cameron's quote applied only to university education? The answer is that tackling the true inequities of Britain's school system, beyond tinkering at the edges, is off limits for all political parties, for it is in the fee-paying sector where the dominance of the wealthy throughout our society takes root.
Yet until this occurs, meritocracy will remain a pipe dream and the potential of millions of children will be squandered.
John Slinger
Rugby
• It's all very well for David Starkey and captains of industry to criticise state education (David Starkey lambasts state schools' 'waste', 10 May). If only our social structure, culture and preferences were not so riven by social class, successful entrepreneurs and leading figures would be more inclined to send their children to state schools (as is the case in other northern European countries).
It is their lack of involvement in the state system, and the separation of their children from it, that leads to lower than acceptable aspirations, as well as poor performance in the state sector.
Colin McCulloch
Reading