On May 23 Lord Lexden was guest of honour at the annual prize-giving ceremony at Brooke House College in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

One especially modest prime minister took care to retain his anonymity as he travelled home to Baker Street by underground from Westminster (letter, May 21).

The report from the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, of which Alistair Lexden has been a member for two years, was launched on May 16.

The thriving Independent Schools Association (ISA), of which Alistair Lexden is President, has instituted a new series of 14 awards recognising the high standards achieved in its 330 member schools. The first winners were announced at a glittering ceremony on May 15 during the ISA’s annual conference.

In February, the Lords Constitution Committee, of which Alistair Lexden is a member, published a major report on the constitutional implications of coalition government. It put forward a number of important recommendations to improve decision-taking by the current coalition government and any future coalitions.

Queen Victoria’s taste for nudity was confined strictly to paintings. She would been horrified that Spencer Tunick has invoked her in support of his ventures (“Artist hails queen and country for our love of nudity”, May 6).

Richard Ryder (‘The poor man in his castle’, Apr.26) confines Queen Mary’s war-time tyranny at Badminton to the house, but it also extended to the estate. ‘ “ Now, Aunt May”, her niece  the Duchess of Beaufort told her, “ remember that those shrubs outside the stable wall are not to be touched”

Sir, Halifax and Churchill were not so far apart in May 1940 as Daniel Finkelstein suggests(Apr 26). They agreed that the war should be ended through a negotiated settlement; the demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender was adopted as policy only in 1943. Both wanted to preserve the British empire. Churchill said that “if we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies he would jump at it”.

In a speech in Northern Ireland on April 16, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, said: “I would like to thank my colleagues Lord Empey and Lord Lexden for using the House of Lords debates on the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act to move this issue forward in a significant way”. It is hoped that progress will be made in the Northern Ireland Assembly in due course.

Under both the last government and this one, secret letters were sent to some 200 Irish terrorist suspects, informing them that they were not currently wanted by the police.