The NPT has two main purposes: to stop countries acquiring nuclear weapons and to get those who already have them to move to full nuclear disarmament. While it is true that the NPT has done a reasonable job in curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons...

Sir: It is commendable that your readers are keen to help British Rail overcome the problem of stopping trains in the presence of leaf mould on the track (Letters, 23 February). Unfortunately, however well versed your correspondent, Mr Horncastle, is...

Sir: With regard to Andrew Marshall's problems with Europlugs (20 February), I understand that the European Union wishes to persuade us to change to a standard European plug for domestic circuits. This will apparently mean changing from the ring main...

Sir: You reported (£22m in migrant fines uncollected, 22 February) on the National Audit Office's investigation entitled Entry into the United Kingdom. Charter 87 for Refugees supports the recommendation that the Immigration Service should develop mi...

Sir: Hyam Maccoby (letter, 21 February) suggests that Dean Inge provides a rhyme with "orange". He doesn't. He said his name was Inge - to rhyme with sting and not with cringe. Yours regretfully, MICHAEL CHANDLER Rector of St Stephen's Canterbury

Allowing only the biggest snouts in the trough discredits the free enterprise system. Greedy British bosses are making a Labour government inevitable - Andrew Neil, commentator Many people ... would no more think of entering journalism than the sewag...

Despite his repeated assertions that he is himself a Unionist, the framework document he unveiled on Wednesday was a comprehensive and undisguised rejection of all the principal Unionist political theories. It blasted them out of the water, opting in...

Grim rituals unfold, rituals of countless Februaries. Climbers climb into places where they should not be in conditions which drive summit- dwelling ptarmigan down on to the low ground, gasping for breath and fleeing for life. Mountain rescue teams a...

Sir: Having read the detail of the Framework Document in the Independent today, I still think it is the best hope for Northern Ireland, but I can now see why the Ulster Unionist leaders see it as a threat. Almost two-thirds of the text is taken up by...

Sir: We are delighted to see from the text of the framework document for Northern Ireland, as given in the Independent today, that John Major has come out in favour of proportional representation, and devolution to the regions within the context of s...

In recent years, unprecedented technological advances have brought dynamic growth in the world's telecommunications markets. At the same time, strain on public sector budgets has led to new government policies and regulations aimed at privatising and...

Sir: I must take issue with Eric Caines' article on NHS pay ("Rubbing salt in nurses' wounds", 22 February). He starts from a position that it would have been better for ministers to have imposed local pay on the NHS. This would not have been the rig...

Sir: Professor David Ward says in his letter (22 January) about the Probation Service that there is "ample evidence" that the social work approach of probation services has been "effective in reducing reoffending". However, he does not adduce or even...

Sir: Unlike Professor Rutter (Letters, 21 February), I found Professor Bateson's article ("The perils of genetic determinism", 18 February) rather refreshing. It seems these days that every time I open a newspaper, or indeed even a medical journal, I...

Sir: David Nicholson-Lord's article (18 February) reported that complaints by gas customers have nearly doubled over the year and that last month alone, they were up 172 per cent over January 1994. A famous news-reader's view of contemporary news - t...