Insecurity at work is now epidemic. Too many people feel that each pay cheque might be their last - Harriet Harman, shadow employment secretary. I would like to challenge Mike Tyson - that is how I feel - Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa, 76...

The Prime Minister could do no better than to remember the words of his Government's own environmental strategy, that "sustainable development within urban areas is closely bound up with the quality of urban life". In a country where we are urbanisin...

Preliminary results from our research in Sheffield show that refurbishment with high levels of insulation and efficient heating systems has eradicated fuel poverty - even among the poorest residents - and lifted many above a "basic essentials" povert...

"Hurry hurry hurry while stocks last! Mountain Mac's hot cakes are moving as fast as The Big One, The Black One, The Fat One and The Other One!" This, you may remember, was a collection of my Independent pieces, published in 1992 by Michael O'Mara Bo...

It is impracticable for employees in the Royal Household to be charged market rents. Their salaries are paid from the public purse at public sector rates and would have to be raised to take account of the rent increase. Staff are employed on merit, a...

There is a view in the industry that British slaughterhouse closures are not due to Government regulation. The Meat and Livestock Commission has published a report demonstrating that the number of slaughterhouses has been falling for over 20 years du...

But are they the right people doing the right job? When the Churchill row broke this week it became clear there was a real credibility gap between popular conceptions of what the Lottery money was going to fund and what the establishment was doing. T...

The reality is that we have had 29 government inner-city schemes in the past 16 years, but all have resulted in an inner-city strategy that is neither coherent or constructive. Mr Major has forgotten that, only a few months ago, this Government's own...

Stephen Dorrell, the Heritage Secretary, should establish the rules of the game before selling Channel 5. If a Parliament stuffed with lawyers can't legislate on cross-media ownership after five years, then what can they do? Perhaps they should look ...

Yours faithfully, PHIL BLOOMFIELD Witney, Oxfordshire 27 April

This startling redistribution of wealth from ordinary working people to leading Conservatives is not what most folk expected to happen to money from the lottery. This is naive. Redistribution from the mug to the powerful is precisely the object of ga...

Ah, but that is not, as tradition has it, how things work in this country. Papers accumulated by prime ministers during their terms of office have always become the property of the individuals in retirement. The muniments rooms of 18th- and 19th-cent...

David Jones and Pita Enriquez Harris (letter, 24 April) indicate that many of those who assist in the formulation of Roman Catholic teaching are physicians and embryologists. There are, however, conflicting views and dissenting Roman Catholic experts...

Yours etc, SHIRLEY COULSON Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire 26 April

War requires a huge support structure: the Emergency Powers Acts of May 1940 obliged many factory workers to work 12-hour shifts seven days a week. In his "never has so much" speech, Churchill announced that "the front line runs through the factories...

Might the Independent promote a lottery strike - just for this week - to test the nation's views, showing those responsible for distributing proceeds, that there are many more worthy recipients? These would include those who fought in World War II un...

In one of the big street markets, I discovered an apple stall from which an orchard owner sold his own produce. I recognised only one of the varieties on sale. They were Coxes and they were the cheapest. I asked the stallholder why the best apple on ...

For instance, it could be argued that any plans - whether those of Sky, Pearson or Virgin - which offer local city or regional elements within the framework of a national channel would better meet the diversity requirement than a simple unified natio...