In the absence of this vital evidence, it seems to me extraordinary that the Government is prepared to spend vast sums of taxpayers' money on encouraging mothers not to bring up their young children but to hand them over to childcare agencies. I woul...

In terms of overall financial compensation, therefore, the PoWs continue to come off immeasurably better than those who did the actual fighting against the Japanese and were killed in action. (They have much else to be thankful for, not least their l...

That's why the Tribune attack on "whingers" is misplaced. If only they had complained and done something about it. Feminists! Then at least we might have seen them pressing unstoppably for alterations in the antiquated practices of the place. It's no...

That the Third World borrowers have on occasions been corrupt or naive is not open to question. But the real paradox is this: the poor saw little or no benefit from the loans, and are now being expected to bear the brunt of the suffering. JAMES M B M...

No human being was harmed, it is true, but hedgehogs are not pizzas, they are living and, more importantly, sentient creatures. It was an act of appalling cruelty reflecting a singular lack of compassion for living things. Many people do find this di...

Independent studies of the implications of abolition cannot be so arrogantly dismissed as "extreme predictions". Abolition of duty-free will affect everyone - costing EU taxpayers up to pounds 6.3bn over the next five years. The fight to save duty-fr...

Executive staff, highly respected by practising artists, and with a broad overview of the arts and serious knowledge of their own art forms, will now be able to get on with what they do extremely well indeed - talking directly to artists and taking d...

Only a couple of weeks ago, judging by their reaction to the Mary Bell case, it was morally repugnant to pay convicted criminals for their stories. Are we to assume then that their moral outrage is simply the bawling of those too slow to get an exclu...

The rank-and-file's attitude to trades unionism is almost precisely the attitude that most people have to serious journalism on television: it's not really for them most of the time - but thank God it exists in moments of crisis. So far, there is har...

WITH JAPAN'S Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko due to arrive on a state visit next week, the Japanese have hired the slick PR firm Brunswick in an attempt to nullify protesters demanding that the Emperor apologise for Japanese war crimes. In an inf...

The scientific and technical arguments in favour of waste disposal have also been thoroughly discredited. The final act of the Conservative government was to refuse Nirex, the nuclear waste disposal company, planning permission for the first stage of...

India's decision to demonstrate its nuclear capability with five underground tests was taken for geopolitical and domestic reasons, not because Britain has a Trident submarine in the Atlantic. Regrettable though these tests are - and Pakistan's likel...

Why too are high-speed lines under construction from Rome to Naples, Florence to Bologna, Hannover to Berlin, Cologne to Frankfurt, Madrid to Barcelona and Lyons to Marseilles? Growing enthusiasm would seem a more accurate description. MURRAY HUGHES ...

When I had my first child nine women were in labour, cared for by three midwives. I spent most of my labour "supported" by two first-year student nurses on their first day in obstetrics, a pre-clinical medical student and my bewildered husband. When ...

Today's is not a simple vote for or against "peace". A "Yes" vote cannot deliver a permanent and complete cessation of violence. Since the signing of the latest agreement, there have been bombs, killings and punishment beatings. The so-called Real IR...

They greeted Trimble's unexpected interruption warmly, stretching out their hands to shake his. But Irish dancing is one thing, politics another. Helen Acheson, one of the mothers, was, she told him, "tempted to say no". But she feared the settlement...

Basically it goes like this: the newspapers that have bought up the women's stories will loudly proclaim them innocent, those who were in the bidding but failed will accept the Saudi verdict that they are guilty. Thus we have the bizarre spectacle of...