Sir – John Phillpott complained in his Saturday column (September 18) that the language used against individuals in the national press “is sometimes vitriolic in the extreme”.

On the same page Mr Phillpott refers to someone as “a middle-aged, pot-bellied matelot in a silly sailor cap”.

He calls someone else an “old misery guts” and refers to this person’s “droning Brummie boorishness”.

Is Mr Phillpott really so lacking in self-awareness that he cannot spot the inconsistency here? Kelvin Hard, Worcester