I once saw a car with a number like MCA 1, and printed on the number plate in small letters was the explanatory name "Michael Charles Adams", as if the owner were desperate to let us know how clever the number was.(Actually, I don't think it could have been MCA 1, because when I grew up in Denbighshire, all the numbers with -CA endings were local to that county; the story went that McAlpine the great engineers had bought up all the car numbers beginning MCA to give to McAlpine company vehicles. Clever, but just as pathetic deep down as going around with UMP 1RE on your car.)Oh, by the way, there was a sequel to the Scottish car plate theft. A year later the Lothian Police wrote to tell me they had had no luck with getting back my stolen property, but if meantime I had suffered as a consequence, they would help me in any way they could with the recovery process. I think this meant they were offering me counselling to get over the loss of a car number plate. God bless you, Lothian Police, but I'm through it all and out the other side now.. Sir: John Hume sees himself as a man of destiny and has been so honoured as a Nobel Laureate. As your leader (12 July) says, he must not be passive now, but once again have the courage to lead from the front.
Your suggestion for his underwriting the preservation of a power-sharing administration, if necessary without Sinn Fein should the IRA refuse to decommission, is all that is required from him and his party. It is little to ask of the party which has preached peace and dialogue for so long. It would speak volumes to sceptical Unionists who are, as I am, genuinely fearful of the "peace" being merely a pause for terrorist breath. It will be a tragedy if, instead of acting like a statesman, John Hume stands by to watch, with many of his nationalist colleagues, while David Trimble turns on the spit of unionist opinion, possibly unable to make that last crucial move.The Nobel Prizes were both, in my view, advance rewards for unfinished business. The next few days will tell us all if the Nobel decisions were simply premature or ill-founded.The people of Northern Ireland are desperate to be led the last vital step on the long road to the chance of a lasting peace. We are all holding our breath for proof that our Nobel Laureates are men of peaceful steel and not some malleable plastic replicas bending in the heat of extremist firebrands who care nothing for the future of our people.GIL WARNOCKBallymoney, Co Antrim.
Sir: Mr Blair's announcement of a ban on fox-hunting shows a hypocrisy and cynicism reminiscent of his attack on Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, he and his allies killed 1,500 people, injured something like 20,000 more, deprived perhaps millions of their livelihoods, and destroyed most of that nation's infrastructure, all to show us what a great humanitarian he is. Now he proposes to save the lives of a few hundred foxes, criminalise about 250,000 law-abiding citizens, deprive some 12,500 of their livelihoods, and jeopardise a large part of our rural infrastructure, presumably to show that he is still a great class warrior.Both of these actions Mr Blair has supported by appeals to the emotions of the electorate rather than by reasoned argument. How long are we going to let him get away with treating us as fools?At least his attack on hunting is unlikely to kill any innocent civilians.JAMES HEYWOODLondon W11. Sir: When Dr Nigel Poole of Zeneca, commenting on the destruction of GM trees, says that "it's not about food, it's not about the environment" ("UK's `most eco-friendly' trees are destroyed by GM activists", 13 July) he is only half right It is true that we don't grow trees to eat them. However, it is wrong to suggest that these were Britain's "most eco-friendly" trees. GM trees are not the answer and, indeed, undermine genuinely sustainable forestry measures such as the standards set by the International Forest Stewardship Council for sustainable forest management. These standards prohibit the use of GM technology. The impact of any release of GM trees into the environment is unpredictable and uncontainable.
Zeneca seeks to assure us that these "tests" are safe, that there is no possibility of genetic escape because all the trees are female and so will not produce pollen. This ignores the important fact that poplars propagate by branchlets which readily snap off and are carried from the site on any windy day.SARAH BURTONCampaign DirectorGreenpeace UKLondon N1. Sir: Hayley Trueman (letter, 12 July) points out that Frank Dobson's White Paper, Our Healthier Nation, fails to involve health authorities in efforts to tackle fuel poverty The Government's record is worse than that, however. In the last session of Parliament I introduced the Health Care and Energy Efficiency Bill, which would require Mr Dobson to issue guidance to health authorities on how they can help with the problem. My colleague Sir Robert Smith has reintroduced the Bill in the current session.