Letter: The unobtainable carrot of desire?

Sir: Judging by the Foreign Secretary's remarks, reported on 5 July ('Gloom over Bosnian peace plan'), and then by your article on 6 July (' 'Carrot and stick' to get jobless into work'), politicians seem oddly out of touch with techniques of donkey driving.

In their view, carrots and sticks are regarded as separate stimuli; one administered as a reward, the other as a goad or punishment. This is quite mistaken. Those in the saddle should know that they have to hold out the stick with the carrot dangling at its other end, so that the apparently attainable reward remains forever out of reach. Doesn't this technique have political relevance?

Yours etc,

IAN GRAHAM

Campsey Ash, Suffolk

7 July