Comments policy

We welcome comments from readers on posts, but you do so as guests in our private space. If your comments are blatantly racist, sexist or homophobic we may well delete them. The same goes for comments which are personally defamatory or insulting or which seek to derail a thread through provocation of one kind or another. If your comments strike us as irrelevant we may also delete them in the interests of keeping the conversation at a reasonable level. Likewise, commenters who routinely seek to make marginally relevant debating points may be barred to make room for those with a substantive contribution to the discussion. It is up to us.