It is a blunt instrument that penalises legitimate as well as profligate use of hosepipes

It is a blunt instrument that penalises legitimate as well as profligate use of hosepipes, while having no effect on wasteful water use by any other means, or at any other time of year. In contrast, a water meter is a simple, practical device that enables customers to pay for the water they use, just as they do for gas, electricity, petrol and food. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.A hosepipe ban is a last-ditch measure, taken when a water company and its customers have got into a hole. Or maybe it just proves that God is male?JULIE COURTNEYSEVENOAKS, KENT Meter your water and pay less Sir: David MacDonald, writing about water shortages (letter, 2 August), lumped together hosepipe bans and water meters, as if somehow they were fellow evils. Any woman will tell you that the female reproductive system, with its monthly difficulties and risky, painful childbirth, has been anything but intelligently designed. In other realms, such as religion and politics, questioning might constitute an attack, but in science it is without stigma.ROSALIND RILEYFRITTENDEN, KENTSir: It’s surely no coincidence that the majority of exponents of “intelligent design” are men. If their ideas had any merit, they would have gained acceptance by the scientific establishment.The aim of intelligent design is to spread confusion about evolution without being too overtly religious.

creationism, to be taught in American classrooms, side by side with evolution, so as to give students “both sides of the debate”. Why stop there? Children could be taught medieval alchemy along with modern chemistry, flat-earthism together with cosmology and Aristotelian physics together with relativity.Why is one particular laughable scientific fallacy being given such prominence and other equally deserving candidates being neglected?JOE WALMSWELLLONDON E7Sir: Intelligent design is not science; it is a strategy used by creationists of the religious right to try and get their religious ideas into the classroom. Clearly I have been wrong all along, and it is a political quality measured on a sliding, indeed slippery, scale.BARRIE STARBUCKHOLMFIRTH, WEST YORKSHIRE What next in US schools? Alchemy? Sir: George Bush wants intelligent design, a.k.a. There are degrees of principle? And there was I fondly believing that at least politicians should be people of absolute principle.

Robin worked closely with the then Scottish Minorities Group at a time when social attitudes in Scotland were very different from those of today.JOHN HEINEDITOR, SCOTSGAY MAGAZINE EDINBURGHSir: Your front page of 8 August informs us that Robin Cook “was one of the most principled and eloquent politicians of our time”. As the Chagos Islanders return to court for justice, only time will tell whether Robin Cook presided over a brief “lucid interval” in foreign policy.RICHARD GIFFORDSOLICITOR FOR CHAGOS ISLANDERS LONDON WC1Sir: Gay men in Scotland owe an immense debt of gratitude to Robin Cook for his amendment to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 which finally decriminalised sex between men in Scotland some 13 years after similar decriminalisation in England and Wales. Planned trips to the islands have been cancelled by the Government, compensation has been denied and the work of the feasibility study has been abruptly terminated. Most cruel of all, the Blair government has abolished the islanders’ right of abode in their homeland, thus reversing the High Court decision in their favour.Robin Cook realised that to command respect, foreign policy must be based upon a respect for law and legal institutions. While Diego Garcia is used for bombing raids on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Islanders have been treated with contempt. He told me that in order to do so he had to persuade Madeleine Albright to accept the return of the population and to this end the High Court judgment was useful to him.
But while the United Nations Human Rights Committee has directed the UK to make the return of the population a reality, and to provide compensation for 30 years of suffering, the Blair government has made a dramatic U-turn.

Robin Cook, then Foreign Secretary, decided that enough was enough, restored the Islanders’ right of return, set up feasibility studies to provide for their resettlement in the other islands of Chagos but not to Diego Garcia. When Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos community, asked the High Court to declare the expulsion illegal, it ruled that the population had been unlawfully removed and wrongly exiled for 30 years. They were removed from their homeland in the 1970s when the USA wished for a military base to dominate the Indian Ocean, and they have lived in poverty and exile since then. Sir: There is one small community which has reason to thank Robin Cook for his firmness in pursuing an ethical foreign policy – the exiled population of the Chagos Archipelago.

The chairgod said he rather agreed, but that it was difficult to stop a sub-committee when they were really having fun.More from the gods soon
More from Miles Kington. The sub-committee on sport had ended up trying to see how much human beings were prepared to accept in the way of divine intervention.24 And how much was that? said the Jewish God.25. Everything that was thrown at them, apparently, said the chairgod They never suspected a thing. But there would be another chance for more experiments by the sub-committee this Thursday, when England and Australia would be starting another five-day match.26 Heaven help us, said the Jewish God.27. Treading on balls? Standing on wickets? Asking gloves for help? What was this all about?23. The chairgod said that it had really developed into an experiment into human credulity.