As a former telephone market researcher for a major UK research organisation I carried out one of the surveys commissioned by the Government into choice in the NHS. Mr Hotopf’s damning assessment of the research matches my own.The questions were highly biased and leading, with little or no qualitative inquiry. The whole questionnaire focused almost entirely on the possible benefits of choice, with no mention of the trade-offs involved. I ask that every like-minded person does the same in the hope that the police will be far too busy coping with their complex and bureaucratic complaints system to bother Brian any further.BEV KENWARDHYTHE, KENT How consent is manufactured Sir: On reading Max Hotopf’s letter (24 May) I was not surprised. It is also a clear demonstration that neither of them, to quote favourite Blairite jargon is “fit for purpose”, for surely they realise none of us would even have heard of dear old Brian without their violent and unacceptable interventions.I have written to the Commissioner and lodged a formal complaint. We will be providing urgently needed medicines to 10 hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as food for the poor, the sick and the disabled.FAROOQ MURADCHAIRMAN, BOARD OF TRUSTEES MUSLIM AID, LONDON E1 1 Desperate attack on Brian Haw Sir: As a police officer with over 16 years’ service I am horrified at the actions of the Metropolitan Police in relation to the veteran peace protester Brian Haw.It is a measure of the two Blairs’ absolute desperation to “hang on” that they choose to attack a solitary, slightly eccentric but totally harmless individual. According to international law, collective punishment is illegal and this is what is happening in Palestine while the international community looks on.Besides giving emergency relief to Palestine, Muslim Aid has for many years also provided hospitals with equipment and medicine; supported educational institutions to empower the poor; set up income generation projects to tackle poverty; promoted agricultural programmes; and taken care of the vulnerable sections of society, such as orphans, widows and the elderly.Now the situation is such that all our empowerment programmes have had to be halted so that we can concentrate on life-saving initiatives.

Over 70 per cent of the population is in long-term unemployment, hospitals have run out of medicine and as a result people are dying. This is an unprecedented situation.Aid and trade have been disrupted, causing immense hardship. If passed, it will cause much damage to the cause of academic freedom. It will also taint NATFHE with the mark of extreme selectivity, to put it at its mildest.PROFESSOR JACOB KLEIN PROFESSOR RAYMOND DWEK, FRSUNIVERSITY OF OXFORD BARONESS DEECH HON FELLOW, ST ANNE’S COLLEGE, OXFORD PROFESSOR MARK PEPYS, FRS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON PROFESSOR SIR ALAN FERSHT FRS UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGESir: Muslim Aid has made an initial allocation of £100,000 towards the provision of medicine, food, and the other necessities of life to the long suffering poor of Palestine The situation today is grim. But when, of all the conflicts in the world today, you choose to single out for condemnation and boycott the Jewish state, and only the Jewish state, we can only repeat the words of the Times editorial that greeted the similarly perverse AUT actions a year ago, that such “actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago”.We urge the members of NATFHE to oppose this motion. These conflicts are arguably as bitter, if not much more so, than that between Israelis and Palestinians.

Yet the country singled out for condemnation and boycott is Israel. We have heard nothing of the boycotting of Russian, Chinese or other academics.We do not agree with those who claim that any criticism of Israeli policies must stem from sinister motives. Apart from their condemnation by international bodies, and general considerations of harming progress in science, the arts and education, such boycotts, whatever their underlying causes, alienate the very people – university academics – who are generally the most active in trying to alleviate these causes.Whatever the rights and wrongs of Israeli and Palestinian policies in the Middle East conflict, there are many other conflicts in the world today: the Russian crushing of Chechnya; the Sudanese genocide in Darfur; and the Chinese occupation and on-going ethnic takeover of Tibet, to say nothing of severe human rights abuses by governments in many other countries. What would the consequences have been if blackout curtains and the civil defence measures taken during the Second World War had been voluntary? Waiting for George Bush is not an option.ELIZABETH PERKSELLESMERE PORT, CHESHIRE Israel, Palestine and academic boycotts Sir: We heard with dismay that the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education in its national conference on 27 May, will consider a motion recommending boycotting Israeli academics who “will not publicly dissociate themselves from Israeli policies”.Academic boycotts are to our mind unacceptable and counterproductive. We are exhorted to use our vehicles less, buy cars with lower fuel consumption, save water, reduce the temperature in our homes, use low-energy bulbs and so on.The Government was elected to lead us and if the threat is as great as we are told then there should be compulsory measures to ensure that we consume less of the earth’s resources and cause much less pollution. Graphs of lives lost will soon replace graphs of rising carbon levels unless the world not only acknowledges the problem but legislates to change its behaviour.”TADESSE DADIPROGRAMME SUPPORT ADVISOR, TEARFUND HORN OF AFRICA SUB-REGIONAL OFFICE ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIASir: It is now generally accepted that global warming is threatening the future of our planet and is to a large extent the fault of the industrialised world.The environmentalist lobby and even the Government threaten us with dire consequences if we don’t mend our ways. Pastoralists in Ethiopia and Kenya are facing calamities as a result of extended droughts and erratic rainfall.For us the effects of climate change are a daily reality pushing us closer and closer to disaster.