A reader sent Derek Winton’s article in Lockdown Sceptics criticising Imperial College's modelling to Professor Neil Ferguson. His remarkable response in turn prompted a lot of responses from our readers. One, a regular contributor to the site, produced a line-by-line analysis which we're publishing below. I was interested to see Professor Neil Ferguson’s reply to one of your readers. I was surprised he had replied, but no less surprised that anyone had bothered to write to him. Now, I think it’s a bit unfair to write to someone and then publish that person’s reply, especially if it hadn’t been made clear the reply would be published. However, it has been, and I suppose anyone in public life would have to be naïve to believe that anything they say is immune to being disseminated more widely. I thought it would be interesting therefore to analyse the reply. I presume you sent me this because you feel upset, angry, that no-one is listening, want to hurt me or change my mind. Or all of the above. Here we have an assumption of motive. The writer, who is a woman, is depicted as having become emotional ("angry, upset"), seeing herself as a frustrated victim ("no-one is listening"), aggressive ("want to hurt me") and manipulative ("want… to change my mind"). Therefore, the original email is ...