I feel the community midwife Caroline Walker is making a mockery of a profession I was very proud to be a part of.

My main role as a midwife was to deliver babies in the home. Later as time changed, I worked in hospitals in Wakefield and Leeds delivering babies there.

To visit new parents in their own home, to be part of such a happy family occasion, was a privilege. It was the best job ever.

I really do feel this midwife has her priorities wrong. She was entering a home, she was considered fit to do her job. Surely she was able to see and avoid any usual baby items, especially ones you would expect to find in a family home following the birth of not one, but two babies!

I cannot believe that a midwife, or indeed anyone, can act in this way.

My heart goes out to Mr and Mrs Hudson and I do hope that this matter will be resolved soon, and in their favour. It is the last thing they need, with two new babies in the house.


What has Mandelson ever done?

From: Paul Buckley, Haigh, Barnsley.

IT must be a desperate act of self-preservation, by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, or the realisation that there are no safe Labour seats
left which Peter Mandelson could be parachuted in to, that persuaded the Prime Minister to appoint the man who was nicknamed "The Prince of Darkness" by satirical magazine Private Eye to the House of Lords, to enable him to take the Cabinet portfolio for Business.

Mandelson has resigned twice from Cabinet, firstly in December 1998 from the position of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, for failing to declare a loan from Geoffrey Robinson, a Labour MP, to buy a house. This loan was also not declared on his mortgage application.

The second resignation was from the position of Secretary of State for
Northern Ireland in January 2001, following claims that Mandelson was involved in an application for British citizenship for a member of the Hinduja family.

The Hinduja family had sponsored part of the Millennium Dome, a project Mandelson had been involved with from the very outset.

While Mandelson hopes to be third time lucky, can anyone remember any of his achievements from his first stint in the Trade and Industry portfolio?

From: Dick Linkogel, Linkogel & Freeman Ltd, Factory Street, Bradford.

IF the answer is Peter Mandelson, what on earth was the question?

Police blow to democracy

From: Brian Middleton, Croftlands, Hanging Heaton, Batley.

I ALWAYS understood we lived in a democracy with a non-political police force. To be honest, I have doubted this for many years.

Your report of the forced resignation of PC Stuart Janaway because he wore a BNP badge while off duty has confirmed that democracy is dead in this country.

I have no time for the BNP. However, the BNP is a legitimate political party. So what offence can it be to openly declare your support for a legitimate political party by wearing the party badge?

I also do not approve of the Human rights Act. But if ever the human rights of anyone have been breached, it is in this instance.

What right has a chief constable to dictate the legitimate politics of those policemen who serve in his force?

While this obscenity goes on, our Prime Minister has raised Mandelson, twice forced to resign from Government, to the peerage and the Cabinet.

Democracy is truly dead.

Rights of entry

From: AG Marsden, Pledwick Lane, Sandal, Wakefield.

WITH reference to the Gurkhas winnings their landmark legal action over the right to remain in this country (Yorkshire Post, October 1), moral obligations and commonsense have prevailed at last, but what a disgrace that it needed an expensive High Court action to achieve it.

Others who should be allowed free entry to this country are persecuted Christians and white Zimbabweans.

On the other hand, asylum seekers and other immigrants, whether legal or not, who stir up racial or religious hatred should be sent back.

If they squeal "human rights", they should be told: "You should have thought of that before."