Sir: The Prime Minister’s announcement of extended coal supply arrangements after 31 March 1998 raises more questions than it answers (“Generators deal gives pits six-month stay of execution”, 11 December). The three-month extension to 30 June 1998 has caused uncertainty among many miners. I am receiving numerous inquiries from men who are very worried that this jeopardises their entitlement to enhanced redundancy payments worth up to pounds 27,000. Salaried employees might have expected considerably more.
The fear is that this short extension to June will result simply in a delay in the declaration of redundancies until after the date when entitlement to enhanced severance pay has lapsed. When the coal industry was privatised in 1994, previously discretionary redundancy terms in the industry became the subject of a formal contract. This is due to expire at the end of March 1998, simultaneously with the coal supply contracts.As things are, the extension of the miners’ employment could mean that they earn substantially less than they will lose by forfeiting the entitlement to appropriate compensation for the loss of their jobs.Ken Coates MEP(Nottinghamshire North and Chesterfield, Lab)Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

Sir: It is hard for anyone to succeed President Nelson Mandela. Although once vilified by most of the South African press, he is now, as Mary Braid points out in her article (17 December) “warm, saintly and charismatic” as well as a “lovable demi-god”

What a contrast to his heir apparent, Thabo Mbeki. Ms Braid obviously could not arrange an interview with him – “a man we do not know”, “a mysterious matchstick man” whose “politics are largely unknown” and whose “private life is a complete mystery”.
But in quoting rumours about “the diminutive Mr Mbeki, always beautifully turned out but oh so dull to listen to” she cites various unsubstantiated charges of Machiavellian behaviour and tags him with words like “bogeyman”, “plotting”, “hostility” and “persecutor”.I met Thabo at anti-apartheid meetings in London when he was a young law student. He used to come home and eat with my wife and me and play with our children. He was one of the sweetest men I ever met – intelligent, articulate, funny, compassionate and an imaginative lover of the arts.Now he is about to take on one of the hardest, most complex and important jobs in the world Already he is being demonised. We should judge him by his actions, not by poisonous rumours.

For the love of South Africa, let’s give him and his great country all the help we can.Adrian MitchellLondon NW5. “Family” is a popular word with advertisers. Like “fresh” or “natural”, it is one of those magic feel-good triggers But in the mouth of a politician the word makes me queasy. So when Labour produced a whole section of its manifesto entitled “We Will Strengthen Family Life”, adorned with an appropriately cheesy family picture, it looked to me more like a threat than a promise. When Tony Blair in his party conference speech promised with breathy sincerity that all policies would be designed to “strengthen our families”, quite a number of women I happened to be sitting near made sick-bag gestures. You don’t have to be that much of a feminist to suspect that the agenda behind any “family” policy smacks of Kinder, Kuche, Kirche. If you think the family has changed for the worse, doesn’t that secretly mean you want women back in the home and divorce made more difficult?
So was all that just empty, Daily Mail-pleasing rhetoric? No.