WE seem doomed to have governments of contradiction.

The National Health Service is short of beds - so the Government closes a hospital and gets rid of 106 beds.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland says she wants to rid Ireland of murderers and terrorists - so she authorises the release of batches of them before they have served their sentence. Meanwhile, terrorism and beatings continue.

The energy minister suggests that fossil fuels be phased out and he discourages the use of petrol.

Then he supports the granting of licences to oil companies who want to sink more oil wells around St Kilda, a World Heritage Site which would be tragically polluted in a spillage. And I could go on . . .

O. M. DELANEY,

Crawford Avenue, Whitefield.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.