Historians, take a lesson 1

Your historians ("Past mistakes", 15 October) seem to be as guilty as the politicians they criticise. Historians have been criticising the misuse of history by policymakers for centuries. Politicians have been selectively quoting from history for their own purposes for as long as there have been politicians. Is there any evidence that politicians are now more likely to listen to historians? It would seem that history is not on the side of the historian.

Tom Franklin, Tom Franklin Consulting.