I have had to put aside my qualifications in order to undergo more relevant vocational training - a distinct inversion of the very scenario that Grayling favours. True, I value my education in the humanities, as well as the insights it has given me and the ways in which it continues to influence my personal development. As a graduate of both philosophy and religious studies, I have sat through interview after interview at which my would-be employers dismissed my educational qualifications and instead tried to figure out if I could just "get on with the job". While I agree with the argument that students of the arts and humanities make valuable employees, the truth is that employers today don't care whether or not such studies make a prospective employee a better or more capable human being. Indeed, Grayling's entire defence is a masterpiece of idealised abstract thought aimed at a vocational environment whose practical demands leave little room for such abstractions, or for those who understand them. Sir: AC Grayling's defence of philosophical education over vocational training ("What's the point of philosophy? Discuss", 17 February) is admirable, but it bears the distinct mark of someone who has received enough economic and educational opportunities in life to allow him to withdraw from the real world in the pursuit of furthering his love of philosophy full-time. And the Austrian government, forgivably wary of its people's proven weakness for far-right demagogues, attempts to outlaw the public expression of some beliefs altogether. More from Thomas Sutcliffe. Religious leaders, sympathetic to the affronted sensibilities of Muslims, insist that freedom of expression must be exercised "responsibly" or "sensitively" (both euphemisms for not actually exercising it at all).

Indignant MPs, furious at the hurt caused to grieving families, demand that Muslim zealots must be prevented from public "glorification" of suicide bombings. Unfortunately those of us who think liberty of expression has had a very bad time just recently don't have a lot of choice. You can't always choose the site of battle, and there's no getting round the fact that those who wish to qualify and trim the principle of free speech occupy what looks very much like the high ground. And since even David Irving now admits that what he said 17 years ago was nonsense or - in his terms - "a mistake", this might seem like the very worst place to mount any kind of rearguard action in defence of free speech. At one shoulder the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, convinced that the entire weight of a covert Zionist world government is bearing down on a harmless scholar. At the other shoulder the racists and Nazi memorabilia enthusiasts with their fantasies of heroic opposition.

Almost in spite of themselves they matter more at the moment than at any point since the general election in 1997. More from Steve Richards. If you want to defend David Irving's right to talk nonsense, as I do now, you have to face the fact that you're going to find yourself in ugly company. When looking beyond the sex and booze of recent months there are fewer dark laughs and quite a lot of reasons for the party to become deadly serious. The broader political background is an altogether different matter. Recently the Liberal Democrats have found important political space.

When I just became sicker he had me seen by a specialist in lung infections at a hospital in Tunbridge Wells. More from Dominic Lawson. The immediate context of the Liberal Democrats' leadership contest was an extensively reported tragi-comedy, a vivid reminder of how the third party can lapse into absurdity without trying very hard. So when my flu turned into pneumonia it never occurred to me to tell the local GP about the pigeon pooh. He therefore gave me repeated courses of antibiotics that would have knocked typical pneumonia firmly on the head.