Questionable answers from Cameron

I couldn\'t help but clench my teeth with indignation after reading your star-studded Q&A interview with David Cameron (So, prime minister, what are you ashamed of?, Weekend, 26 November). In his reply to a question from Tracey Emin he pinned himself down as a \"big fan of art education\" and said he is \"all in favour of us having well-funded art colleges\". The art college in Maidstone where Emin studied (whose current students I represent as a sabbatical officer) will be closed by 2014 and is now part of the fourth worst-cut university in England. The University for the Creative Arts has been forced to bid for exemption from coming student number reforms after the funding council was \"convinced\" by the case of institutions like ours that the result of these changes would \"likely be a loss of this type of provision\". The university would have lost over £1m in funding under the new regime. I worry for the future of our institution, and art and design education in Britain as a whole. UCA has a good record for widening access, and Cameron is a brazen hypocrite who would see that destroyed, with the \"enormous benefit\" of this \"great education\" denied to so many in future. However, he is not the only hypocrite. If Emin truly cherished the memory of her education at Maidstone College of Art she would not have so publicly endorsed the Tories over her desire for a lower tax rate. Luke Frost Maidstone campus officer, UCA Students\' Union •  I have spent much of the last six years helping to clear up the damage caused by Thatcher ripping up nutritional standards for school meals. Far from saving us money, this nasty piece of deregulation cost our children and the school meal service dear. Following a commendable campaign by Jamie Oliver and others, we finally got nutritional standards again. But by refusing to apply the nutritional standards to academies and free schools while encouraging the majority of schools to become academies, the government is effectively destroying the standards (Cameron feels heat from Oliver over food standards in academies, 26 November). That is why I have written to the School Food Trust, the Local Authority Catering Association, the Food for Life Partnership and the Children\'s Food Campaign asking them to insist Michael Gove applies nutritional standards to all schools. I expect these organisations to \"speak truth to power\". Failure to do so will have dire consequences for the school dinners our children will be eating. Tackie Schneider Morden, Surrey • David Cameron, Guardian Weekend, 26.11.11, page 47: \"We are spending £82.5m on our new music strategy and we\'re going to do more to try and make sure this money gets through where it is needed … I\'d like the opportunity for my children and other children to do better.\" Report in Guardian main section, 26.11.11, page 25: \"Wrong note as Gove cuts funding for music plan … at the moment £77.5m is allocated for music tuition … The money will drop to £75m from April 2012, £63m the following year and down to £58m in 2014-15.\" Maybe the Leveson inquiry\'s remit should be widened. Robert Meikle Birmingham •  David Cameron\'s favourite line in literature is \"Men of England who lie in bed\"? Actually, the St Crispin\'s Day speech is wonderful, but his favourite line (fortunately) doesn\'t occur anywhere in it. Jim Milroy Deddington, Oxfordshire •  Another question David Cameron might usefully have have been asked: how long can the government continue blaming the present situation on \"the mess we inherited from Labour\"? Is there a historical precedent for government taking responsibility for its own mess? David Huband Norwich •  I can\'t begin to express how disheartening it was to read your David Cameron puff piece – trite unchallenged responses to trite unchallenging questions. If this is the best the Guardian can do with a government still contemplating how to cut the top rate of tax while public services are being slashed and the privatised providers of energy and travel charge endlessly more, etc, it\'s truly a sad day in the 30 years I have been reading the paper.