Sir – May I briefly say how totally I agree with Chris Pearson about censorship (Letters, August 8) but how wrong I think he is about anonymity.
From Socrates to Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft to Germaine Greer, women and men through the ages have had the guts to be known by their names for the challenges they’ve had the courage to make.
Anonymity is a cowardly way for inadequates to feel they are brave. It attempts to defy the laws on criminal slander, false accusation, and threatened violence or rape. This is nothing to do with freedom of speech since for centuries, as with the names mentioned above, people of vision and outspokenness have never been scared of the consequences.
We must abolish once and for all the legitimisation of cowardly anonymity.
Ian Flintoff, Oxford
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