FAITH AND FACTS ARE NOT THE SAME

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury (but not on its website):

Faith and facts are not the same

Mr Jacques is quite right (July 19), Holocaust deniers peddle their argument when they and everybody else know it is untrue.

They do it because they are politically-motivated racists who think that if they say it often enough ignorant people with no other source of information or the same prejudice will believe it.

Where Mr Jacques's argument falls down is that, by his own admission, the stories he points to are built on faith. They are a belief, no doubt strongly held, but they are not irrefutable fact.

They may be true, we cannot say one way or the other and, as he states, he has the right to "express an opinion openly, however outlandish it may be".

But he has no right to compare messrs Pendragon and Hipwell (June 29, July 3) to Holocaust deniers and he should apologise.

If you will allow me to be pedantic, the prefix "so-called" is usually applied when the writer does not agree with the accusation.

I am sure this is not the case with Mr Jacques.

Callum Collier, Leicester