ID CARDS: UNDER a last-minute shabby compromise agreed between the Government and Tories in the House of Lords, anyone renewing their passport or any other "designated" document will be compulsorily entered onto the National Identity Register.

Individuals will merely be able to opt not to receive a card until January 1, 2010 - but will still have to pay for it.

The problem has always been the database, not the card, and the comprehensive destruction of privacy it will bring.

In Parliament, round one may have gone to the Government by misdirection, but in the country it's a different story.

Millions are already vehemently opposed. What's the Home Office going to do? Round them up and force them to be fingerprinted or iris scanned? The coercion they will have to use will bring home to the public the true nature of the scheme.

The Government may think it has won, but our group NEsaysNO2ID has only just begun to fight. - Robin Ashby, NEsaysNo2ID, Newcastle.

FOLIC ACID

SO what is new about folic acid in pregnancy? Nothing.

Forty years ago, I was in general practice and we routinely gave Pregaday (folic acid plus iron) to women who wished to conceive or who were in the early months of pregnancy. We knew then that it would help in the prevention of nervous system defects in babies. - Dr Ann E Carr, Middleton St George.

SHAME OVER SHOOTINGS

IN the space of a week two coroner's juries in London, investigating separate incidents in the Gaza strip, have found that the Israeli armed forces have murdered two British citizens by deliberately shooting them in the head.

On both occasions, despite the evidence of murder, the Israeli government has refused to co-operate with the coroner.

Imagine if the Palestinian organisation Hamas had targeted an innocent British journalist and an equally innocent aid worker. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, would have denounced Hamas and in doing so he would have called for EU and UN sanctions against them.

Yet when Israel murders British citizens, the families of the deceased find that the UK government has been totally uncooperative. One can only assume they don't really care. Just as they don't care when Palestinian boys of nine and ten years old are shot by Israeli snipers, or old people have their houses bulldozed to make way for illegal Jewish settlers.

As far as the UK government is concerned, the state of Israel can kill who it wants to kill. It can ethnically cleanse Palestinian Arabs from their land if it chooses and it can break every international law that it wants to break.

There will be no condemnation, no sanctions, no UN resolutions. One can only judge that the UK government is morally bankrupt. - John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.

KNIGHTLY GIGGLES

ACCUSE me of sour grapes if you must, but the very mention of knighthoods amuses me, seeing how I find them ridiculous, along with the fancy dress which goes with them.

I remember former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey ridiculing his fancy regalia - "Don't we look silly?" he asked while all dressed up to appear in the House of Lords.

And while titles prevail, so will the Us and Them scenario. Let's get shot of them, in the name of democracy. - Alfred H Lister, Guisborough.

SAD PLACE

RETURNING to England on vacation after many years away I have been struck by the changes, and must admit very few of them are positive

I was so looking forward to coming home, having been born and raised in No Place, near Beamish, in County Durham. I live in Canada now, but have always been, and always will be proud of who I am and where I come from, so imagine the dismay I felt when I set eyes on the village of my childhood.

It was just a small coal mining village, but it was special in my eyes. However, today it looks like something from a Charles Dickens novel - filth and squalor, an all-over look of desolation. I could not get over the crumbling walls and streets, the boarded-up houses. A far cry from what it used to be.

Have the people of this country got no pride any more? Where are the members of the local council, the landlords who own these homes, that they should allow such decay?

I speak highly to Canadians and my family of the country and the county of my birth, but there will be no photographs of No Place going back to show my children or grandchildren.

I am embarrassed at the state of a place I dearly loved. I would have rather come home and found it levelled to the ground. - Margaret Laing (nee Moore), now of Medicine Hat, near Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

ROAD CONGESTION

T KELLY is too late with his call (HAS, Apr 12) for restoration of our pre-Beeching railway network. The endless growth in our population has aggravated the shortage of housing to the point where building land is becoming very scarce (and expensive) and much of the land formerly covered by railways and their buildings has already disappeared under bricks and concrete, especially in urban and suburban areas.

Transport advisors to the Government are keenly aware of how much time is left before traffic increase brings gridlock to our road system, but their remedy is very different.

Transport Minister Alastair Darling is already considering proposals to charge motorists for using the roads, and obviously the level of charge can be adjusted to regulate the traffic density to any desired figure.

One hundred years ago, most Britons were priced off the roads by their inability to find the cost of a motor car. Soon it will be their inability to find the road tolls. Another illustration of how overpopulation of a small island deprives its citizens of their liberties. - Bob Jarratt, Caldwell, Richmond.

MARK THE OCCASION

ST GEORGE'S DAY - April 23 - is nearly upon us, and I would like to encourage my fellow Englishmen and women to go out and celebrate our patron saint's day.

As usual, I will start the day off by singing the national anthem to my children, and then tuck in to a full English breakfast before joining fellow patriots in Darlington town centre to drink some fine English beer.

After visiting various watering holes, I will head off home to enjoy a meal consisting of British beef, potatoes and vegetables, before I raise my small glass of rum to Her Majesty the Queen before retiring to bed.

April 23 is a big day for England, and I urge all English people to celebrate it in style and join me as I say: "God Save the Queen." - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

POLICE COVER

I HAVE just been on a short visit to Bishop Auckland, and I found one thing very remarkable. During the six days I spent in the town I became very aware that I had seen only two police cars, and not one bobby on the beat. Is this due to the low crime rate of the area, or are all the police working under cover? Intrigued. - R Dixon, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, N Ireland.