Sir: I was glad to read Clare Short’s comments on taxation and even more pleased by her declaration that she had cleared them with herself (“Blair’s joy cut short by new tax row”, 15 April). If we do follow the path advocated by Mr McRae, we should renounce all efforts to play any major role in world politics, and become professional neutrals, like them.
Failing that, there are two long-term courses open to us: to help build a new kind of Europe or to become another state of the American Union.James DayCambridge. Sir: Was King Priam a German? The Trojan gold belongs in Turkey if anywhere (“Trojan gold fuels rift over war treasures”, 16 April)

John Mole
London SE24. Sir: Why not let the wings of the giant Gateshead statue (Letters, 13 April) turn in the wind? Their movement could generate free electricity for the local community That would surely reduce the negative feelings

Alan C Pickwick
Sale,Cheshire.

Sir: Hamish McRae (“Why Britain would fare better on the fringe”, 12 April) wishes for a looser association with the EU Perhaps, in economic terms, he is right. He cites Austria, Sweden and Switzerland as able to maintain a high living standard under such circumstances. He does not mention that these countries enjoy one advantage that our politicians of both major parties have ignored for the past half century They do not attempt to act as world powers. The result is a much more relaxed experience for both mother and child, and the rewards of loving and intimacy can’t be described.Stephanie Davies-AraiSt Albans, Hertfordshire.

Sounds like hard work, but paradoxically you will not be too disturbed in the night after the first few months, as your baby settles in to the security of knowing you are always there and night feeds gradually diminish.Eventually, mother and baby are so synchronised that you perform the night-time tasks in your sleep, and greet in the morning not knowing whether the baby awoke in the night or not. Perhaps this is normal healthy behaviour, showing a strong survival instinct, and we should be proud that our baby is so smart. Perhaps we need to accept that parenting is a job that doesn’t stop for a stretch of seven hours out of every 24, and maybe it is during those most frightening night- time hours that our babies need our presence most.An alternative answer to the problem from my own experience is: sleep with your baby and breastfeed on demand throughout the day and night. By relinquishing the title of Her Royal Highness she acknowledges that Sarah Ferguson and “royalty” never quite went together. She can no longer use HRH as a key to unlock book deals and see her on to the top table at charitable fund-raising events.
The couple’s timing was probably apt, too, getting residual nastiness out of the way to allow the Queen to celebrate her 70th birthday in the knowledge that no further family bombshell is about to burst This week at least. The hormonal changes in a woman on becoming a mother, especially if she is breastfeeding, ensure that ignoring her baby’s cry feels like torture.
Perhaps we need to look at the subject from a completely different angle.

Perhaps we need to accept the fact that when a baby wakes alone in the dark night, it feels frightened, needs its mother and wants her to stay. This is an essential element, since we see our rejected applicants working through both LEA and independent supply offices.Chris KingDirector of EducationTimePlan Education GroupLondon N3. Sir: I was worried for any new mothers on reading your article “Help me make it through the night” (18 April). Although there is sound advice concerning bedtime routines, I would vehemently question the implication throughout the article that those parents who respond to their child’s cries in the night have a “problem”.