Witness her verdict on the Government's economic policy: The rise in taxes is frightening since

Witness her verdict on the Government's economic policy: "The rise in taxes is frightening since Labour came to power." Her view that the Prime Minister's wife "hates the countryside" is only the sort of hyperbole in which many members of the self-proclaimed countryside movement indulge, and is rather less wounding than the personal insult, "horrid, horrid, horrid", which was initially (and wrongly) reported. Sophie, Countess of Wessex, did not, after all, say many of the things attributed to her a week ago. Not that the words attributed to her then were that interesting; but the words she in fact used are even less so. Her comments betray the unexceptional opinions of a middle-class and partisan Tory woman. Witness her verdict on the Government's economic policy: "The rise in taxes is frightening since Labour came to power." Her view that the Prime Minister's wife "hates the countryside" is only the sort of hyperbole in which many members of the self-proclaimed countryside movement indulge, and is rather less wounding than the personal insult, "horrid, horrid, horrid", which was initially (and wrongly) reported.Two small points, and one more important one, perhaps remain to be made. One is that the Countess should not have reacted so defensively to being secretly tape-recorded.

Her opinions are nothing to be ashamed of, and she should have stuck by them. If she had done so, she might have been able to turn the spotlight on to the News of the World's methods. The other is that the News of the World's public-interest defence of its entrapment is utterly feeble; the newspaper deserves the strongest censure from the Press Complaints Commission. The tittle-tattle extracted from this sting cannot possibly justify the use of deception.A more substantial issue concerns the impact of this parade of follies on the institution of the monarchy itself. The trailing adjuncts to the House of Windsor have shown that sure suicidal instinct that is so much more effective than any reasoned arguments for reform. The case for a slimmed-down, bicycling monarchy is suddenly more persuasive.These, of course, are the last subjects that the Queen or her conservative Prime Minister want raised.

Even if it provides a welcome distraction from bad news from the front line in the battle against foot-and-mouth, Tony Blair would probably rather talk about almost anything else. In that light, he should be congratulated on relaxing the rules of collective responsibility to allow Kim Howells, the trade minister, to make his refreshingly rude comments about all members of the royal family being "a bit bonkers".It can only be counter-productive to try to suppress diversity of views on subjects such as this. If ministers are free to express opinions that are commonplace across Britain, that may help the monarchy to reform itself and to stay in touch with public opinion.. From a talk by Godfrey Howard, the author of 'The Good English Guide', given at the Oxford Literary Festival The fact that you understand this gives you a head start in life You know the most valuable language on earth. More than a billion people all over the world are struggling to get a share of the linguistic treasure that was dropped into our laps, the English language. But what is happening to it? What follows will reassure you ­ or maybe warn you ­ about the state of our beloved language. Here we are in Oxford, so the first question to ask is this; is there still such a thing as an "Oxford accent"? Twenty years ago, Oxford dictionaries still defined an "Oxford accent" as the style of speaking English characteristic of members of Oxford University.

By 1990, the expression "Oxford accent" was dropped from Oxford dictionaries altogether. Perhaps that sums it up.Let's go on to something less parochial. We are witnessing the approach of one of humankind's greatest dreams ­ the end of Babel We now hear regularly the term "Global English". It is estimated that by 2050 half the population of the world will be more or less competent at using the English language. Should we be worried about what might happen to the language that is our linguistic lifeblood, because so many people all over the world are manhandling it? But is it our language anyway? Enoch Powell once proclaimed: "Others may speak English ­ more or less ­ but it is our language ­ not theirs!" The rest of the world doesn't see it that way. It is not easy for us to accept that, in Britain, we speak the dialectal form of English belonging to a small group of islands off the north coast of Europe. So do we have the right to claim that we have final authority over English, now the global language? And what is happening to English grammar? Over 500 university professors, lecturers and teachers of English signed a letter in a higher educational journal maintaining: "The teaching of grammar and spelling is not all that important." That rings alarm bells.