The cost to Asda was pounds 6.79; the cost to me was pounds 11.04, a difference of some pounds 4.25. It has always been the practice to give the large multiples a trade discount of 50 per cent plus, while the rest of us struggle to provide a superior service on normal trade terms. I doubt whether Asda and the other supermarkets would bother to order a single copy of Mr Appleyard’s last book to satisfy a customer, but I would and do, for two-thirds of my business consists of single customer orders.The Net Book Agreement is not some cynical plot to make everybody pay through the nose, but a way of ensuring that good books get published alongside the bestsellers, that readers are given the widest possible choice and, dare one say it, value for money.Yours sincerely,BRYAN FORBESVirginia Water, Surrey. From Dr Robert Page

Sir: Although Chris Ham (“The grey suits deserve better treatment”, 10 June) is right to draw attention to the need for high quality administration in the NHS, his suggestion that “the suits” currently directing our health service deserve praise rather than criticism rings hollow.
What he fails to highlight is the way in which too many of our NHS managers have been imbued with the ideas of Friedman and Hayek rather than Tawney or Titmuss. As a result, they have failed to understand how high-quality NHS care is dependent on non-exploitative, solidaristic, participative working practices.The NHS needs secure salaried administrators with a commitment to both patients and staff, rather than “performance-related” managers whose perennial search for market advantage leads them to create so much unnecessary discord in one of our most cherished public services.Your sincerely,ROBERT PAGELecturer in Social Policy & AdministrationUniversity of NottinghamNottingham12 June. From Mrs Mary Winchester

Sir: Sir Fred Catherwood of the Evangelical Alliance (Letters, 9 June) writes:
Everywhere we’ve been, there are teenage boys homeless because their mother had to choose between a stroppy teenager and her new man. A teacher in Swindon told us of a boy who had come to him that morning.

His father had sent him back to his mother but she didn’t want him, so “Where do I go tonight?”Last week I got a rather different picture in which Swindon also figured.A 16-year-old knocked on my door, one of a group of teenage peddlers who have been coming to this neighbourhood for several years, selling tea cloths, etc He looked so young that I inquired into his circumstances. He came from Wallasey, could find no job, got benefit of a little over pounds 50 per fortnight and could not live on it. His mother required pounds 30 per week for his board – his parents were both unemployed.He and the other boys are put into b&b in Swindon and bussed to their area of operation They receive no wage, but half of their takings. That is probably why, in the past year, two of them became near-hysterical when I told them that my kitchen drawers were stuffed with their goods and I could buy no more. Presumably their “employer” is not acting illegally.It seems to me that only better economic and social policies will solve the practical problems of families; and, as for morality, it is easier to be responsible if you have a job, a decent home and a stake in society.Yours,MARY WINCHESTERBath10 June. From Mr Ronnie Cass

Sir: I refer to the open letter by Ray Harris (“Dear Cliff Richard”, 31 May) in which, with great perspicacity, he puts his finger on what started “youth culture” in Britain, namely the film Summer Holiday. A brilliant analysis and exposure, appearing for the first time in the press, apart from the review by that doyenne of film criticism, Penelope Gilliat, who talked about “the essential communism” of the film when she reviewed it in the Observer.
However, and with some reluctance, I do have to point out to Mr Harris that Cliff and his bus crew did not make up the words as they went along; they were, in fact, supplied with most of the songs by myself and my late partner, Peter Myers.Of course, we soon realised the horror that we had unleashed upon an innocent and unsuspecting world.

Peter found he could no longer live with his shame and died in 1977. I, being of a much more callous nature, still live on but not a day goes by without a feeling of contrition for yet one more dastardly deed of youth, for which I know I am ultimately responsible.Yours faithfully,RONNIE CASSLondon, NW37 June. From Mrs Cas Saunders

Sir: I was sorry to see that I was quoted somewhat out of context in Mary Braid’s report “Church concedes death of celibacy before marriage” (7 June). The reason for choosing celibacy before marriage was that, when standing together in church on our wedding day, we felt that we were making a statement before God, our families and friends of our intentions to honour God’s laws and teachings.

Let us not forget that in a church ceremony, we make vows to each other in God’s presence (not suggestions we may care to revoke later).
I would also like to point out that never at any time did we feel rebuked or rejected at Holy Trinity, Brompton for “living in sin”. Indeed, the warm, loving and unconditional acceptance that greeted us (especially from the then curate and his wife, Nicky and Sila Lee) to this day influence us in our Christian lives.Yours sincerely,CAS SAUNDERSOxford. From Mrs Christina Burton

Sir: So that new concept for the Nineties, John Birt (“Armanism”, 12 June), has several Armani suits. My husband, Humphrey, 64, a former Birt colleague, has only one piece of Armani clobber – and non tax-deductible at that. Obviously it is an Eighties leftover.
Armani, Giorgio, may be unworldly and corrupt, but he is my hero. His classy women’s clothes made it acceptable and chic for us to turn up in trousers and flat shoes just about everywhere you want to go. What a liberator! Much more interesting to mankind than equating Armanism with creative tax-return forms.Yours sincerely,CHRISTINA BURTONLondon, W14.

From Mrs K L. Boukeras

Sir: I am writing to you in disbelief at the comments made by Ruth Dudley Edwards, regarding Muslim women’s clothing (Diary, 5 June). To compare hejabs, which can cost up to pounds 250 each, to “black bin-liners” is both insulting and ridiculous. The whole point of wearing an overcoat is to protect us from the sexual comments, harassment and abuse that Western women suffer in their “liberated” clothing.
As a convert to Islam myself, I now realise that looking like a bin-bag is far preferable to looking like the trash that is stored in one.Yours faithfully,K L BOUKERASLondon, SE8. Are we seeing the birth of a New Conservative Party? There is an agenda, an intellectual history, various leaders, quite a lot of followers. This party would be vigorously anti-state and anti-welfare, nationalistic in its rhetoric and staunchly opposed to British entanglements in European politics.