WITH the election coming up, I felt it important to emphasise that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a serious party with strategies to cover any and every important issue thrown at us.

For example, with regard to global warming, we have the perfect solution. Everyone knows 35 per cent of body heat escapes through the head. With 60 million of us in the UK alone, that is a lot of heat.

Let us start campaigning now to bring back the bowler and to wear our top hats with pride. Global warming could be eradicated overnight. This May, vote Loony - you know it makes sense.

Eddie Vee, York OMRLP, Wenham Road, Oaklands, York.


* IT has come to my attention opposition parties are trying to hoodwink voters by claiming a vote against Labour will change policies in Westminster. It won't. All it will do is to rob local people of excellent local representatives.

Hard-working local Labour candidates are not responsible for unpopular policies the Government is pursuing. They are doing a great job providing high-quality services for local people.

Opposition parties have been calling on voters to "send a message" to Tony Blair in every election since 1997, and no amount of lost seats has changed his mind.

If you want to change the Labour Party, join my campaign. I am standing against Gordon Brown for the leadership on a raft of alternative policies, including an end to health cuts, withdrawal of troops from Iraq, direct investment in council housing and raising the basic state pension to £114.

To find out more, visit www.john4leader.org.uk. Above all else, make sure you vote Labour on May 3.

John McDonnell MP, Contender for the Labour leadership, Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex.

l IN response to a quite disturbing article (Church in attack on racist' policies, April 13) I would like to clarify a few things with the Rev Jeremy Clines.

Firstly, the BNP is not a racist party. We do not hate anybody based on the colour of their skin. We simply state this country is full, and those people who have paid into the system all their lives should come before scroungers of all colours in respect of housing, employment and health care. Why, Mr Clines, is this racist'?

The BNP contains many Christian people who have the moral courage to stand up for their Christian beliefs in an age of rampant consumerism, decadent liberalism, and pathetic Christian leadership.

Many people I know would go to church more regularly if its crop of gutless, spineless, Marxist Islamophiles made way for leaders who do not bow down to the altar of political correctness, yet rather take a firm stand against it.

It seems okay for people like Mr Clines to target the BNP, who only want to improve the lives of an oppressed British people, yet he and his colleagues don't mutter a word about the rampant paedophilia in the church, nor the barbaric practice of ritual slaughter of other faiths, nor the fact Britain is becoming an Islamic country before our very eyes.

Mr Clines should either have the courage to stand up for the real issues facing the church or make way for someone who will.

Ian Dawson, Acomb BNP candidate, Ouse-burn Avenue, York.


* IT was with amazement we read of the Conservatives' local election pledge to provide free dental care for all primary school children in York (Camera on Cameron, April 13).

Currently, anyone under the age of 18 is entitled to free NHS dental treatment. Are the Tories now saying the York council taxpayer has to pick up the bill for services that should be provided through the primary care trust?

The council has no powers to commission dental services from the NHS. We must assume, therefore, the Tories would support the private sector and add further to the break up of the NHS system, despite their assertions they believe in the NHS. Perhaps this is not surprising, given it was a Conservative Government that ended free dental and eye check-ups.

We have estimated the cost to York's council taxpayer of this promise alone will be of the order of £1.4 million or the equivalent of a three per cent increase in council tax, to which needs to be added the costs of all their other promises.

We now challenge the Tories to publish their income and expenditure assumptions for this pledge they have made.

Coun Carol Runciman, executive member for children's services, and Coun Sue Galloway, executive member for adult services and health, Guildhall, York.


* AGAIN the Lib Dems are responsible for pure spin in relation to their campaign for more police officers (Lib Dem calls for more bobbies on the beat, April 14).

They seem to ignore the fact the Labour Government has done a considerable amount to improve the number of police officers. In 1997, North Yorkshire Police had 1,376 police officers. At the latest count, the number has improved markedly and now there are 1,578 officers and 86 community officers.

Despite what the Lib Dems say, there are more police working on the ground level in York.

The introduction of Neighbourhood Policing, another Labour initiative, has seen higher visibilty patrols, giving residents greater reassurance York is a safe place.

Coun Ruth Potter, Chaucer Street, York.