Sir, The honours system does not respond to any precise measure of merit or achievement. It is nonsense to suggest that Salman Rushdie’s literary eminence is so great that it would have been unjust not to offer him a knighthood, or that taking the political consequences into account would have been failing to stand up for our way of life (always a work in progress) against extremist pressures (report, July 11). Honours and politics have always gone hand in hand and it is not just extremists who feel intimately insulted by this one.
The debate on terrorism badly needs more effort to understand where it comes from and why. Sir Salman’s accolade suggests there is quite a long way to go.
MICHAEL OATLEY, Sherborne, Dorset