There is no such thing as a Scottish MP, an English MP, a Welsh MP or an Irish MP An MP is an MP – nothing more and nothing less. As a student for the priesthood at Maynooth in the 1970s, when Fr McGinnitty was Dean, my most enduring memory is that he was a reasonably good actor who could never resist the exaggerated gesture

The Rev KEVIN HEGARTY
Belmullet, Co Mayo. It seems from the report that many of his followers ascribe his agitation to the frenzied efforts of the devil to upset him May I set their minds at rest. Sir: The West Lothian Question is the reddest of red herrings (comment, 25 June).

Sir: I was interested to read in Paul Vallely’s report (25 June) of Fr Gerard McGinnitty’s tortured gymnastics as he celebrated Mass in the House of Prayer on Achill. He may think that being prepared to push the nuclear button will help win the next election. However, a clear 50-60 per cent of the British electorate now favour a Britain without nuclear weapons, and want to see a treaty ridding the country of them.JANET BLOOMFIELDChair, CNDLondon N7. Sir: Bryan Appleyard writes (comment, 27 June) that “the English are, stereotypically, arrogant and superior” – he is mistaken. It is the French who are superior, the Germans inferior, while the English simply think the world owes them a favour

TOM KENYON-SLANEY
London W6.

If the nuclear party is set to go on, then what is to stop other countries from joining in the fun?
If Tony B1air thinks that playing macho games with humanity’s survival will make him popular with voters, he is wrong. that the continued failure of Britain to place Trident on the negotiating table has contributed to the quarrels in evidence at the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty talks in Geneva. The arrogant insistence that Britain should hang onto its nuclear weapons simply because it has them will antagonise non-nuclear countries and potentially galvanise threshold states into deploying their own arsenals. This is what the Trust hopes to prevent.CAROL SHERRIFFDirectorChild Accident Prevention TrustLondon EC1. Sir: The launch of Labour’s defence manifesto for the next election is a terrible lost opportunity (“Nuclear responsibility is awesome, says Blair”, 26 June). The manifesto, in one line, says Labour is still committed to a nuclear free world. However, it fails to say how it intends to help achieve this, and Tony Blair completely omitted this commitment from his press statement, saying only that Labour would press for reductions in nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.