Toynbee's

Stewart HowsonGuyzance, Northumberland• I too deplore the scale of the arts cuts, but Polly Toynbee's description of the South Bank as "blossoming … as a hub of community activity" Comment, 29 March will surprise the many local people who, before the Royal Festival Hall refurbishment, used to enjoy free music, often for dancing, every weekend lunchtime – and some weekdays.

Letters: Short-sighted and dangerous cuts to the arts 2011

In 2009, after Toynbee's candour impressed a Commons inquiry into top public pay, the MP Gordon Prentice tabled an early day motion urging "journalists, broadcasters, commentators, politicians and others to follow her example before pronouncing on pay levels in the public sector by first disclosing their own income, earned and unearned".

Even if you show me yours, I'm not showing you mine | Catherine Bennett 2011

Toynbee's thesis, discredited by most other historians, was that great civilizations, like Greece, Rome and Britain, decline, fall and sometimes renew themselves, followed by eras of religious revival.

Raymond Heard: In the Beginning, the Idea, the Word, Then Babble Raymond Heard 2011

Taken to its logical conclusion, Toynbee's argument is a call for the abolition of local government, presumably in favour of a paternalistic Fabianism run from Whitehall that has served us so well?

Letters: Tea Party kettled 2011

Toynbee's thesis, discredited by most other historians, was that great civilizations, like Greece, Rome and Britain, decline, fall and sometimes renew themselves, followed by eras of religious revival.

Raymond Heard: In the Beginning, the Idea, the Word, Then Babble Raymond Heard 2011

Toynbee's thesis, discredited by most other historians, was that great civilizations, like Greece, Rome and Britain, decline, fall and sometimes renew themselves, followed by eras of religious revival.

Raymond Heard: In the Beginning, the Idea, the Word, Then Babble Raymond Heard 2011

Producer Phil Tinline, a man with an extraordinarily quick but neat mind, reined in Toynbee's hectoring and let the interviewees speak for themselves.

Rewind radio: 5 Live Sport; Woman's Hour; The Class Ceiling; What's Eating the Museum? 2011

However, Toynbee's characterisation of what follows bears no relation to what we argued.

Letter: Progress opposes schmoozing the City 2011

As the founding and current directors of a UK birth cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and their Children, we fully endorse Polly Toynbee's celebration Comment, 8 March of the forthcoming 2012 birth cohort.

Letters: Cohort birth study 2011

Toynbee's thesis, discredited by most other historians, was that great civilizations, like Greece, Rome and Britain, decline, fall and sometimes renew themselves, followed by eras of religious revival.

Raymond Heard: In the Beginning, the Idea, the Word, Then Babble Raymond Heard 2011