"Shakespeare's famous saying" about treason, quoted by Fred Shipton (Letters, November 8), was in fact penned by the Bard's contemporary Sir John Harington, godson of Elizabeth I, proponent of water-closets and friend of the Earl of Essex (beheaded for treason).

It comes from his Epigrams (1618) and runs: "Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?/ For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

Seneca had already said something similar and Talleyrand later observed that "treason is a matter of dates".

These are worldly opinions. Those of us not made cynical by the exercise of high power may maintain that treason is treason, for all of that.

There is such a thing as loyalty to one's community, unfashionable though it may currently be, and such a thing as betrayal, however one may clothe it in weasel words.

Despite the progress of centuries and the prospering of diverse cultures, the great acts of treachery remain just that: Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks at Thermopylae; Rahab betrayed Jericho; Judas betrayed Jesus; Mata Hari, Quisling, Petain, Blunt - such names indelibly signify betrayal.

Liberals, of course, tend to admire and encourage betrayal.

E M Forster said it was better to betray one's country than one's friend.

Graham Greene (a friend of Kim Philby) in his 1969 speech "The virtue of disloyalty" claimed it was the writer's duty always to side with the dissident against authority.

Such sentiments are fine in times of autocratic authority. At a time of jingoism and reflex nationalism, such as occurred during the First World War, the cultivation of dissent is in order.

Our times are different. We now have more dissent than communal value.

The fashion is to ditch everything that smacks of national cohesion and pride. We urgently need to restore proper values. That includes calling treason by its true name.

-Graham Chainey, Marine Parade, Brighton