Borisconi, IQ and the top of the cornflake packet

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/01/borisconi-iq-top-cornflake-packet

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In his Margaret Thatcher lecture, Boris Johnson has exposed himself as a subscriber to the odious philosophy of the "undeserving poor" – and (by alluding to Gordon Gekko) the deserving rich (Report, 29 November). Johnson fancies himself to be clever, and has soundbite opinions for every occasion; but they are attention-seeking rather than considered, and tell us more about his personal ambition than anything else.

Millions are on the breadline as a result of Tory welfare cuts; food banks are struggling to meet demand; loan sharks wax fat; hospitals are treating cases of malnourishment and rickets. These things, in Johnson's clever-clogs world-view, affect only the despised 16% of our species, so they can be disregarded.

And in response to tabloid-inflated hysteria about an influx of Romanian and Bulgarian welfare-hounds, Johnson cracks a cheap jibe about Transylvanians and tents – an undisguised slur on the Roma. A man who insults the underprivileged (whether foreign or home-grown) from a platform of privilege and conceit is neither wise nor trustworthy. Giles Swayne London

• "Intelligent" Boris Johnson commits the age-old folly of mistaking good fortune, selfishness, narcissism and aggression for intelligence, but unwittingly demonstrates the wrongness of his position. The ability not to think too much is a boon to making money; an intelligent person might see there's more to life than greed.

Even if his statistics are right and meaningful – which is doubtful – what proportion of this 2% with IQs above 130 are actually "the rich"? I imagine most of these are educators, academics, healthcare professionals etc, on public sector pay, while his putatively intelligent rich are either born into indolent wealth or spend their time money-grubbing because that represents both the zenith of their skills and the full extent of their one-dimensional personalities.

What is clear now, for those for whom it was ever in doubt, is the reality of Tory values: the disdain with which they view the less fortunate and the reason why the annual cull of the impoverished through malnutrition and hypothermia is not a problem to them. Dr Stephen Riley Stalybridge, Cheshire

• IQs don't explain. They reflect what you have and what you have been given. Over the past century they were used not only to "explain" this piffle about cornflakes but, more insidiously, to explain differences in achievement between black and white schoolchildren in the US. Until it was discovered that blacks raised in the north of the US had higher IQ scores than whites from the south.

IQ was hatched as an idea just after the Victorian era. It melded nicely with "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate" – the motto of the Bullingdon club, perhaps. Sadly, some people still believe this – and, presumably, that the 40% of children who leave school with precious little do so because they're thick. Professor Gary Thomas School of Education, University of Birmingham

• Linking IQ and wealth is an insult to all those intelligent people in professions such as teaching and nursing, who generally do what they do because they find it enjoyable and rewarding while knowing they are not going to become rich. In his book IQ, Stephen Murdoch describes how Alfred Binet developed intelligence tests to identify children that need extra help with school learning. Murdoch concludes however that while Binet gave us a test that roughly gauged mental abilities, more than a century later we are still waiting for the next jump forward.

Hungry children are not good learners or even good school attenders and so the rampant capitalism that Johnson preaches leads directly to impaired intelligence. Joseph Cocker Leominster

• I was challenged years ago to try to join a society that only recruited people with high IQs. I passed the test, and may even have felt an infantile cockiness when I started going to meetings. There, however, I discovered that IQ tests indicate nothing other than the ability to pass IQ tests. Some of the members were rather dull, narcissistic and even, by any standards, somewhat stupid. Researching further I discovered that intelligence is unspecific. Different intelligences are manifested by plumbers, mathematicians, brain surgeons, taxi-drivers, Indigenous Australians and London mayors. One might perhaps even argue that financiers, plutocrats, economists, bankers and the very wealthy are in some sense downright stupid for the destruction of social cohesion and harmony that their myopia brings to the lives of others – often more intelligent and well-adjusted perhaps than they are themselves. Ian Flintoff Oxford

• A study of the relevance of IQ levels carried out at Canada's Brock University concluded that low IQ levels in childhood contributed towards rightwing leanings later in life. It would appear that the very people Boris Johnson demeans may be his most enthusiastic supporters. Geoff Clegg Carshalton, Surrey

• I never shake my packet but there are always cornflakes at the top. David Gerrard

Hove, East Sussex

• Well done Suzanne Moore on coming up with "Borisconi" (29 November). I shudder when opponents call maniacal rightwing politicians by their first names. Consider the damage caused by even sensible people using "Maggie". Keith Richards London

• Central to the IQ debate is the idea of average. Can I point out that on average, an adult has one testicle and one breast. Barry Lewis Ex-president, Mathematical Association

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