YOUR LETTERS

Dear Sir, JOHN Rule calls local politicians xenophobic because they want to preserve and promote their local language and culture. He claims that the island's inhabitants do not support this policy and that the local government is out of step with reality. I suggest that it is John Rule who is out of step with reality. Has he visited other parts of Majorca, beyond Calvia and Palma? Whenever I leave the south-west of the island and venture out into the interior and north-east, I find that I hear more Mallorquin than Castellano ( and that includes largish towns, such as Inca and Manacor). Perhaps John Rule has a hankering for the time when Franco was in power and everyone was obliged to speak what some people ignorantly call ‘proper Spanish'

Yours faithfully, George Tunnell, Calvia
PS Those foreign doctors who want to work in Spain, but who do not want to learn the basics of the local language, should apply for posts in Madrid.

Dear Editor, ON “News at Ten” on Monday, 30 March 2009, Lord Mandelson said that it was hypocritical for Mr David Cameron to comment about the sleaze in Parliament because the Conservative Party was equally to blame. This, coming from a man who lost his ministerial post twice through sleaze and had to be made a Lord to bring him back into Parliament because nobody would have voted for him, is incredible.

The present sleaze is worse than when the Tories were in power because when Labour took power they came in on a manifesto promising no sleaze. It appears that when a Government changes hands, the keys to the sleaze trough are handed on to the incoming Government.

This makes a farce of the promises any political party makes in their manifestos to get themselves elected.
Yours truly

C Crane, Palma