People don’t want a homogenised corporate world

How sad that David Bernstein seems to have Lady Thatcher’s handkerchief tied across his eyes (Private View, DW 30 July).

The normally perceptive and sensitive Bernstein seems not to have noticed how most people’s attitudes to large corporations – especially ones with global aspirations – have changed. We no longer want the cookie-cutter imagery of old, rolled out by corporate America, where you were happy to walk through your golden arch to your Holiday Inn room, which would be reassuringly the same in every country around the world. We do not want global corporate domination.

BA’s tailfins gave us charm, humour and diversity. They lifted the spirits, and just because they were different they were easily recognisable – as David discovered at Belfast. I’m sorry the Old Tories and thick handkerchiefs defeated this brave experiment: it wasn’t perfect in all the details, but it was worth pursuing and developing – rather like New Labour, now that I think of it.

Terence Conran

London SE1