FROG SPAWN Phenologists are confidently predicting the appearance of frog spawn in the South West "within days". It concerned a copy of Eduard Fuchs' restricted-access work Erotische Kunst which had once been issued to a man claiming to be a serious student. Why does the Conservative Party need six weeks for its 300,000 members to choose between just two candidates?WILLIAM G STEWARTKINGSTON-UPON-THAMES, SURREY An erotic education Sir: Howard Jacobson's article about his researches into the works of the Marquis de Sade (Opinion, 22 October) reminds me of an anecdote I was told when I joined the staff of the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1956. I have also decided to spend at least £10 per week outside my supermarket of choice, in the most excellent local meat, fish and delicatessen shops we have here in Reading. If many other people did the same in other towns across the UK the survival of the local shop would be assured.TREVOR LEARNERREADING Tory leadership contest Sir: A General Election campaign to elect nearly 650 MPs, and involving nearly 30 million voters, is conducted in 17 working days. Contrast this approach with that of the Embassy in respect of telephone calls to, for example, the Visa Section from would-be visitors to the US These are premium-rate calls charged at £1.30 per minute.
Now that may not constitute a tax but it most certainly looks like profiteering at the expense of the inhabitants of the country that the President has called America's closest friend and ally.RAY DODGEWEYMOUTH DORSET 'British' royals Sir: What, in number five of Ten Questions on 24 October, does Sean O'Grady mean by "British"? Richard III was indeed the last English king to die on the battlefield (at Bosworth in 1485), but Scotland's James IV perished at the battle of Flodden in 1513, 28 years later.JAMES SCOTTMILTON KEYNES Revolting against Tesco Sir: I have made the decision to not buy anything from Tesco unless there is no other choice when away from home ("Small retailers revolt over the Tesco-isation of the high street," 19 October). How can we expect the rest of the country to listen to us as MPs and act to cut their unnecessary energy consumption, unless we do so ourselves?NORMAN BAKER MPLIB DEM SHADOW ENVIRONMENT SECRETARY, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON SW1 Embassy profiteering Sir: The US Embassy refuses to pay London's congestion charge claiming it to be a tax and therefore inapplicable to diplomats who are exempt from local taxation. Cutting the amount of energy we waste unnecessarily can make a big contribution to these efforts, but we cannot expect businesses and individuals to clean up their act without political leadership from the front. Sadly, when it comes to our national parliament, we seem to be going backwards.Figures I released last week show that, on the parliamentary estate itself, electricity consumption has risen by a massive 45 per cent since 1997, as appliances, from office equipment and nearly 2,000 TV sets, to escalators and lighting, are left on through the night and over weekends.
Anyone with a controversial case will be denied services.The Government is keen to reward its corporate donors with legal work, but the result will be that finding a legal-aid lawyer will soon be like finding an NHS dentist: all-but impossible.SIMON HARRISPORTSMOUTH Climate change: put this House in order Sir: Clearly, as our planet faces the very grave threat of climate change, it is imperative that we cut without delay our carbon emissions which are fuelling it (report and leading article, 24 October). These supermarkets will not want to offer matrimonial or criminal services reliant on legal aid as this work is unprofitable and burdened with soul-destroying government bureaucracy They will "cherry pick" work. And it seems they do.DR JOHN MEERSISLEHAM, CAMBRIDGESHIRE Keep the law out of supermarkets Sir: David Prosser ("At last its time to bring lawyers to book", 22 October) is wrong if he believes that allowing Tesco or Asda to provide legal services will open them up to the public. It is small wonder that much of the world talks in terms of double standards when it is now clear that the CIA was deeply involved, for example, in the assassination of President Allende of Chile and the many attempts to kill President Castro. The slaughter of villagers in Vietnam, Iraq and the rest is not viewed with the same self-righteous horror as the deaths caused by the Nazis in, say, a French village.
