You report that a schools bill will be introduced on Tuesday in parliament (Queen’s speech: what bills to expect, 9 May). The education secretary says the bill is designed to “create a school system that works for every child, parent and family”. Why, after 12 years of Conservative government, does such a system not already exist?
Simon Maddison
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Re the correspondence about the Daily Mail (Letters, 6 May), once while waiting to fly at Heathrow there was a trolley with free papers. The couple in front of me picked up a Daily Mail in great excitement. I intervened and said that I thought there would probably be plenty of toilet paper on the plane so they needn’t bother taking one. It wasn’t greeted positively.
Dr Michael Maier
London

Songwriters Leiber and Stoller deserve a prize for Poison Ivy’s medical advice: “You’re gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion” (Letters, 8 May).
Ian Watson
Glasgow

The Beatles’ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer contains a reference to pataphysical science and rhymes it with quizzical.
Janet Fraser
Twickenham, London

Remiss of Mark Lawson not to have included Dennis Waterman’s role in the brilliant television dramatisation of Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (Dennis Waterman: a streetwise natural in three great British TV series, 8 May).
David Feintuck
Lewes, East Sussex