For years, dentists benefited from a system which made the guidelines for MPs' expenses look miserly, topping up their income by finding excessive work in unsuspecting mouths. Smelling a rat, the Department of Health introduced the reforms of April 2006 ostensibly – and incredibly – to boost patients' access to NHS treatment.

To say the move was counterproductive would be an understatement. Dentists quit the NHS in droves, some of them abandoning patients in the middle of a course of treatment. Of those who retained NHS patients, some practitioners were tempted into eking out what should have been a single treatment into a series of visits.

The nadir of the new "band" system decreed that dentists were remunerated equally for a simple extraction and complex root canal treatment, with obvious consequences.

A prominent lobbyist for scrapping the 2006 reforms came on TV and said that the NHS had to be made attractive to dentists.

If the mooted reforms materialise, they will be a huge step in the right direction. I have long thought that dentists should be paid according to the number of patients on their books. If my dentist had to rely on patients like me – I follow his advice and only show up for periodical check-ups – he wouldn't be able to make a living, unlike my GP, who has a retainer against my name.

A GP friend once told me that his favourite patients were the ones he didn't see. Remuneration according to patient base would "make the NHS more attractive to dentists". It would also encourage them to practise the prophylactic dental care to which they have always paid lip-service.

From: Brian Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

HAS the penny dropped at last? There appears to have been an outbreak of sanity with regard to contracts for NHS dentists ("Stop the rot", Yorkshire Post, June 23).

From: BHJ Barton, Hartoft, Pickering, North Yorkshire.

In reply to Ann Younger (Yorkshire Post, June 26), I would like to point out that cattle are not aggressive unless provoked or if they feel frightened.

Let's take the scenario of walkers entering a field
of cattle.

You have entered the animals' domain, their world, and what is more you carry perfume or scent that is strange to them, plus differing brightly coloured clothes and possibly you are in numbers and chattering.

The animals will come over at a trot to investigate.

They are not being
aggressive, but through ignorance of how cattle react and behave we have a potential situation that can get very quickly out of hand and end in injury and fatality.

The proper way to react when cattle approach is to stand still and keep quiet and stay in a group. Do not wave sticks or walking poles.

The cattle will sniff you from a short distance or may well stretch out their heads and lick your clothes. Keep still and quiet and they will wander off having checked you out and decided you are no threat.

You can then move off slowly, but do keep quiet until you
are either well clear or in the next field.

In the event of an overly excitable animal that may show aggression (as in a cow with a newborn calf), you will need to repeat the steps above but also stand sideways to the animal, raise your right arm in a stiff straight line from your shoulder to your pointing forefinger only (with your remaining fingers curled up) and point directly at the cow's nose end.

Do not point it at the cow's eyes or look at the cow's eyes, but look at its nose. In this way, you are not showing the animal any aggression or challenge.

I know these things from a lifetime associated with cattle and if this helps readers then it's been worthwhile.

Show mettle, Mr Cameron

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

THE positive respect I had, as a lifelong Tory voter, for most of the opposition, disappeared
last week when David Cameron was being interviewed on Channel 4 News.

It has obviously been naive of me in thinking that the Tory side of the House were a little less dishonourable than the rest, but having just read about how much is being paid back for false claims and "mistakes" it is self-explanatory that they have also had their noses in the metaphorical trough.

The paying-back exercise is of course an admission of guilt, and I would have bet my last penny that if it had not been exposed in the Press, the fleecing of the taxpayer would have continued ad infinitum.

What is Mr Cameron up to? Instead of making excuses for his members who stepped over the line, he should have come down on them like the proverbial "ton of bricks".

The more serious cases should have been de-selected immediately and some fresh blood introduced. If some of the worst villains, on both sides, end up with Government jobs, I will never trust a politician again, which is a pity because these are the people who, ever since childhood, we were taught to respect and who
were supposed to be paragons of virtue.

Please, Mr Cameron, I implore you, show us a bit more mettle otherwise we are going to get Gordon Brown in for another five years, and we know what that means.

Pronounced differences

From: Susan Towle, Grange Garth, York.

WHILE wholeheartedly endorsing Betty Marsden's views (Yorkshire Post, June
24) regarding falling
standards in grammar and pronunciation, I feel there is a much more insidious menace pervading media and day-to-day usage.

Not having seen this mentioned before in similar correspondence, I am wondering if I am experiencing Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome whereby I am the only one who notices or cares.

The increasing contamination of our language is demonstrated for me by something with its roots in "estuary" speak which unfortunately has now spread to common usage. It is the general inability to pronounce "TH" as anything other than "F"or "V", as in "fink", "wiv", "fings", "fought", "togever".

That for which we could at one time make allowances on EastEnders (after all, they don't know any better) now assails our consciousness on a regular basis from those who most definitely should know better.

This affliction seems to have become so entrenched, it seems likely that future generations will be unaware that an alternative ever existed.

Oh yes, and don't get me started on "likkle" and "miggle". I despair!

Who are the real authoritarians denying our will?

From: T Scaife, Manor Drive, York.

LINDA McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and Humber, mentions her dismay at the support for the BNP in our region. Her reference to and dismissal of fascism in this context would be admirable if it weren't for the fact she represents an authoritarian government.

Gordon Brown dismisses urgent debate on the UK's involvement in the EU and reject's a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. This treaty is merely a means to bypass the failure of the rather pushy EU president, José Manuel Barosso, to garner enough support for the EU Constitution.

Mr Barosso, the apparent EU emperor, wishes to stifle public concern regarding the suspicion that we are sleepwalking into a federalist Europe.

Rapid expansion of the EU appears to have facilitated the removal of yet more industry and jobs from the UK and Ireland, to the cheap
labour markets of certain EU nations.

Our government should insist on a level playing field for all related industries within the EU. Demanding equal pay rates and similar social benefits to all EU employees.

The UK is imploding with economic and social decay, massive unemployment and a betrayal of our youth, turning us truly into Little Britain.

The Republic of Ireland is the last bastion of free speech against the federalist Mr Barosso. But alas, he laughs in the face of that Irish free speech, forcing another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because the Irish rejected it the first time.

Why can't Mr Barosso respect Irish opinion and understand that no means no?

Linda McAvan needs to explain why the UK can't have a serious debate and referendum on not only the Lisbon Treaty, but our future involvement within the EU.

Failure to do so means accusations of fascism tend to rebound on to New Labour.