WATER SUPPLIES: I AM alarmed at the Government's proposal to amend the Water Bill in favour of re-introducing fluoride to drinking water.

While there appears to be a scientific case that fluoride is beneficial to dental health, there are serious concerns regarding the effects that long term exposure to fluoride will have on our general health and well being.

If the Government is genuinely concerned about the dental health of the nation maybe it should ensure that dental care is available to all via the National Health Service. Or is this too radical a solution? - Anne Alderson, Sadberge.

FLUORIDE is raising its ugly head yet again.

Journalists have exposed the Government's secret plan to force water companies to add this highly toxic chemical into our water supplies. Fluoride is a listed poison. It is in all insecticides and pesticides and is still used as rat poison.

It has been proved that a family-sized tube of toothpaste contains enough fluoride to kill a small child if swallowed all at once. It is lethal stuff.

There is still no scientific proof that fluoride does reduce tooth decay in children. Even if it did, it would have no further effect on teeth after the age of 12. Anyone over 12 would be drinking fluoride-poisoned water for nothing.

More than 50 per cent of fluoride consumed is not excreted but accumulates over the years in increasing toxicity in our bones, tissue, brain etc, becoming a contributory cause of some forms of cancer.

If any of your readers also think these risks are not worth taking for the off-chance of maybe delaying the extraction of a few teeth, I urge them to contact their MP and their water company now; before it is too late. - A Hall, National Pure Water Association, Darlington.

PARLIAMENT

IS it right that Scottish MPs vote in the House of Commons to impose a pay formula on English and Welsh firefighters, but say they will not impose the same formula on Scottish firefighters?

Is it a case of MPs just with double standards or is it a small band of Scottish MPs too scared to stand up to the all-too-powerful president Tony Blair?

If this is still a United Kingdom, is it not wrong to impose a pay formula on English and Welsh firefighters and not to impose the same on their firefighters?

I believe it is every Scottish MP's duty to respect and protect all workers, no matter what their race, from would-be dictators such as Mr Blair and Mr Prescott.

If they do not then they should not have the right to vote on issues that affect workers' rights in England and Wales. - RP Ellis, Spennymoor.

FOOTBALL

IT has often been said that life can be so unfair, when so many people are rewarded for failure.

We football supporters are a strange breed, but recent events have proved that we are nowhere as strange as those who run the game.

Football club directors are usually men who have made their name in the business world, millionaires who have competed with the best, and won; entrepreneurs who, on becoming football club directors, immediately become dithering idiots.

The Sunderland chairman once appointed a manager who had just been sacked as a failure by Manchester City, then this manager proceeded to create the worst team ever to play in the Premier League.

Now Leeds United, in an endeavour to produce a better team, have appointed a new manager. Who is the Messiah? Is he someone with a successful reputation?

Actually he is the man who left Sunderland with the worst team in the history of this famous old club. The club that was once known as 'the team of all the talents'.

As I said previously, life can be so unfair. - Rob Jameson, Peterlee.

CLARE SHORT

CLARE Short's resignation should be seen as no great loss to the Government.

Downing Street is right to be dismissive of her departure. She says that Tony Blair went back on his word over the UN's involvement in post-war Iraq, but talks on this are ongoing and will take time.

Short has resigned on other occasions and returned to office, but following the allies' military success in Iraq, this time she was left with nowhere to go.

It is good that Tony Benn's son, Hilary, has been appointed to her former department. - LD Wilson, Guisborough.

WAR

MR Kelly (HAS, May 9) does not read the same New Testament as I do; I find nothing in the Gospels which suggests that Jesus blesses war and violence and the killing of men, women and children in what politicians call 'a just cause'.

He ought to read the Sermon on the Mount in St Matthew's and St Luke's Gospel which contains a section emphasising non-violence in human relations and he ought also to be aware that Jesus lived in an enemy-occupied country, yet refused to lead an armed rebellion against the Romans as the Jewish zealots wanted him to do and what Judas Iscariot hoped he would do.

The world is full of religious people like Mr Kelly who still believe in the Old Testament God, the God who commands his 'chosen people' to slaughter their enemies, a God who delights in the shedding of blood. No wonder wars never cease and no wonder religion gets a bad press. It says that at the grave of Lazarus (St John's Gospel) Jesus wept: he still does. - Rev John Stephenson, East Herrington.