At a number of locations around the country, protesters are throwing themselves in front of lorries. If there is a shadow of doubt as to whether it is completely safe to proceed, the driver should simply stop. One could also argue that it is unreason...

1. It was John Major on his first day (27 October 1989, in Northampton) as Chancellor, not Norman Lamont, who said that, if it is not hurting, it is working, 2. The economy is not growing at 4 per cent a year, but at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent in...

We are afraid to discuss these things with our fellow Protestants, never mind anyone else. The same old tired names and choices appear on the ballot papers each election. The newspapers interview the citizens of the Shankill Road to gauge opinion, no...

Nobody else is doing much apologising these days. Politicians would rather not. The captains of industry are utterly impenitent (there was one last week who made a remark of unexampled stupidity about junior hospital doctors; he was given repeated op...

No one in the West can be sure of the precise interplay. Doubtless though, the worsening in relations between Washington and Peking is linked to the process of replacing Deng Xiaoping. Even if the 90-year-old Deng is still alive, he no longer control...

Federalism is not another word for centralisation, nor does it mean decentralisation; it is both, but both in the right place. Federalism is not a system of imposed uniformity, nor is it just an alliance of common interests; it offers, rather, as muc...

Is this another NHS crisis? If we were less fascinated by navel-gazing at our supposed decline, we might alternatively take it as evidence that some things, at least, are right with the place. It is interesting, to say the least, that German hospital...

In brief, the facts appear to be: first, yesterday's interest rate was the third in five months; second, the recovery is past its peak, according to the Governor of the Bank of England; and finally, the growth in the economy has largely been export-l...

It's not as if there is anything interesting about Simpson to the average non-American. Simpson may have been a star in America but nobody in Britain (outside a few late-night American football fans) displayed the slightest interest in OJ Simpson bef...

Public participation in the construction projects for regional development is a noble endeavour in Myanmar [Burma]. It is true that to implement major projects, financial resources of the state, technical skills and machinery, coupled with mass parti...

Nice Mr Paisley: "This is absolutely typical of the patronising, vile, uncompromising attitude of the British government that I should be given absolutely no choice of beverage! It is an insult to the memory of all those involved in the siege of Lond...

Peter Goldsmith QC Chairman The General Council of the Bar London WC1

Cherie Booth's anxiety that a defaulter should be returned to jail while allegedly accepting that "there is no evidence that [the defaulter] has any means at all" raises serious legal issues. Your newspaper was right to publicise this. Chris Lamb Cov...

2) "Equitable distribution of wealth" is much too prolix. Let us say instead the "Equal distribution of wealth". "Equitable" merely means "Fair" and while Sir Cedric Brown of British Gas is absolutely certain that three quarters of a million is fair,...

Keith Collins Whitton, Middx

2 Subtitling it "Tom Paulin's Masterclass". 3 Using that "informal" photograph of Tom Paulin having a jolly good think about criticism. 4 Ending it: "Next week: The opening paragraph." Richard Smith Brighton

Given the likely cuts in education budgets this year, we know that local education authorities will have some difficult choices to make. As you pointed out, reading recovery will be cheaper in the long run, but can education authorities afford to tak...

The family had not changed much. They were the same high-spirited, pious mavericks I remembered. Steam trains and world Communism had gone, computers and the European Union had come, but they were still talking about who did what in the German occupa...

However, low staffing levels, performance-related pay, long hours, bullying management practices and many other workplace stressors are best addressed by joining a trade union. It is no accident that John Walker, the former social worker who won dama...

Mr Molyneaux said that, on 1 December, he had been "informed that a framework document did not exist". Yet he had just been told by the Northern Ireland Office that the Times report was based on a document of 25 November, a week before the statement ...

Rodney Warrington, Chester

The totalitarian state, as portrayed by Orwell, Koestler and others, allowed no commitments except to the ruling state ideology. Religion was discouraged, voluntary associations banned, schools, universities, press and broadcasting organisations cont...

This is mere political correctness, or to use an older and more expressive term, barbarism. Prof John Radford Psychology Dept University of East London London E15