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If not should it not be more widely known? Apart from the financial help I found unexpected pleasure in the

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If not, should it not be more widely known? Apart from the financial help, I found unexpected pleasure in the implication that bureaucracy could be human - as if someone had said: "Terribly sorry we were a bit boring about making you obey all the rules but have a drink on us - here's your VAT back!"Yours sincerely,RUTH WINAWERLondon, N1016 March. After my own investigation my builder agreed, greatly to his own surprise, and refunded £580 for excess VAT.Has this exemption from tax for structural work on listed buildings, fulfilling all the regulations, been rescinded? It worked in 1988. My architect did not know of the exemption and neither did my builder I confirmed this good news by a visit to the public library. It is not only the poor who are gullible.Yours faithfully,MOIRA J O'BRIENMorpeth,Northumberland13 March. From Ms Ruth Winawer Sir: I am surprised that in all the present discussion on listed buildings there seems to be no mention of what I found an unexpected and very welcome bonus: the fact that if one makes an alteration to a listed house (mine was Grade II) after going through the process of getting official permission and approval for the design - in my case an outside staircase to the basement - there is no VAT to pay. I was alerted to this fact by a neighbour. O'Brien Sir: I read with sadness and a sense of helplessness your article "The poverty in Britain's backyard" (13 March). Can you imagine my feelings when I turned to page 8 to be confronted with a prelude to a senseless competition to win a £10,000 Christian Lacroix outfit Collect the coupons and then find out what to do. From Mrs Moira J.

If the Russians think they have the right to impose conditions on other sovereign states, then they must also have conditions imposed on them.This should make it clear to Moscow that Nato poses no threat to a democratic and peace-loving Russia, but that it will be prepared to defend democracies against invasion from any aggressorYours sincerely,CLARE HARTLEYLondon, W11. Christian Socialists like us are asking a similar question about the Labour Party.Yours faithfully,ANDY WINTER,JANIE THOMASHAZEL BARKHAMWILL SHEAFFCATH HOLMSTROMMONA WARRENBrighton19 MarchThe writers are members of the Executive Committee of the Christian Socialist Movement and are writing in their personal capacity.. From Ms C J. Hartley Sir: I suggest that Nato and Central Europe accept Moscow's "tough terms" on one condition - Russia does not become a dictatorship and she does not attempt to restore the Soviet Union or extend the current borders of the Russian Federation by force. If democracy were to be abolished in Russia and the country were to turn expansionist, then Central Europe should be fully integrated into Nato. As for the Christian Socialist Movement, it retains as one of its seven aims "the common ownership and democratic control of the productive resources of the earth".It is said that the new Clause IV will make Labour more electable. St Matthew asks: "For what has one profited if they shall gain the whole world, and lose their own soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

From Mr Andy Winter and others Sir: Your report of Dr Leslie Griffiths' lecture to the Christian Socialist Movement ("Labour to receive Methodist blessing", 18 March) implies that the new Clause IV has been endorsed by Christian socialists. While some, like Dr Griffiths, may like it, many Christian Socialists continue to believe that common ownership remains a fundamental expression of our faith. I supervised many PhD students, on whose behalf colleges received considerable extra annual fees, whereas the departmental laboratories, which are responsible for the greatest proportion of the intellectual and social development of science graduates and their future career prospects, receive nothing beyond a derisory bench fee.The graduate and undergraduate fees received by Oxbridge colleges, arrogantly justified by them as "special treatment" not meted out elsewhere, are an academic embarrassment for many within the system, and bordering on a public scam for those outside the system .Yours faithfully,GABRIEL A DOVERDepartment of GeneticsUniversity of LeicesterLeicester. These restrictions were official policy of the College Tutorial Office, not only because of supposed financial limitations but because of the narrow, competitive desire to look good in the colleges' league table of examination success. By contrast, the last three years at Leicester University has seen a shift from tutorial remedial work to adventurous discussion groups, student debates and journal clubs organised by academics, and enjoyed by supposedly "inferior" first-year students, who receive not one penny for such dedication.The lie of the Oxbridge "special treatment" is particularly underlined at the graduate level. As tutor for biology for 15 years at King's College, Cambridge, I saw a system change from weekly, one-to-one discussions based on thought-provoking topics to tutorial groups of not less than three, held for no more than six weeks a term with topics limited to the contents of the lecture courses.

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