Sir: The articles and letters about UK government statistics published in the Independent in December had one striking omission: no one seemed to be much concerned about cost and the inevitable trade-off which must be faced between the cost and q uality of statistics. They may not realise that this will be a transient phenomenon which cannot be sustained.A fund to allow high-quality environmental education throughout Madagascar would be the most fitting tribute to Andrew Lees, and I hope that Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups can set one up.Yours faithfully PAUL K MOSTYN Gorton, Manchester 9 January. Without such educational work, people in and around the proposed mining area will see the influx of money and, no doubt, free-spending foreigners as a welcome boost to the local economy. The Worldwide Fund for Nature already runs an excellent programme based on the zoo in Antananarivo, but this is only available in the capital. My experiences in another part of Madagascar were that the people were afraid of the forests and that even well-educated Malagasies remain superstitious and fear harmless animals.
Educational programmes to convince local people of the importance of the forests to their own country and lifestyle, as well as to vazaha (foreigners), should be set up throughout Madagascar. As so often, however, campaigners against mining and other projects which damage the environment will do themselves no favours by neglecting to take into account the feelings of local people. Titanium is one of the most abundant metallic elements in the earth’s crust and there is no shortage of titanium dioxide on a global scale.

Sir: As someone who has lived in Madagascar and has a great affection for that island and its people, and who is also a professional ecologist, I fully support the views of Friends of the Earth and the late Andrew Lees that further damage to the fragile environment of Madagascar must be avoided. With the help of Brigadier Parker Bowles, the Windsors are now becoming more like an ordinary British family – one in which adultery leads to divorce. It can only alienate them still further from their natural supporters.. The Windsors have been presented to the British public in this century as a symbolic family. In fact, the sexual arrangements of the upper classes have always been atypical, particularly in a tolerance of adultery quite alien to the core monarchists: the old mums and widows who wave their flags on coronation days. Mrs Parker Bowles will soon be free to remarry: a development that significantly altersthe equation of her relationship with the prince.

Any hope of the heir to the throne that his marriage need never be formally ended or superseded by another would seem to be receding.There is a great irony in all this. Many will conclude that the brigadier could bear gossip and innuendo, but not mass-media exposure as a cuckold.Although it does not have the constitutional impact of a royal divorce, the snapping of the brigadier’s patience is not without consequences for the House of Windsor. The Prince of Wales, however, broke this code by blabbing about his mistress, first on television and then in book form during 1994. It seemed, however, that the Parker Bowleses had a marriage of the sort which has not been uncommon among the English upper classes and has been revealed to the more conventionally uxorious through the sagas of the RtHon Alan Clark.
The protocol of such arrangements seems to be that all participants remain discreet and keep their original marriages and families intact. This divorce has been brought about by the heir to the throne himself – and not merely in the traditional physical sense.

The knowledge of his wife’s extramarital commitments must have been with the brigadier for some time: they have been the talk of pubs and buses for at least five years. He is to divorce his wife, Camilla, who has been, and is widely assumed still to be, the mistress of the Prince of Wales. Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles has apparently decided that he has kept up appearances for long enough already. It will require the full and fair apportionment of blame, however high that may lie – and resignations by those found to be at fault..

Confidence in the Prison Service will not be restored merely by sacking subordinates. He was commissioned to undertake a wider review of prison security after the escape of five IRA inmates from Whitemoor prison last year.Sir John should now use his powers to examine the actions of both the Home Secretary and Mr Lewis. The inquiry into the Parkhurst breakout is being conducted by Richard Tilt, who was appointed by Mr Lewis and is therefore unlikely to criticise either his bossor Mr Howard.The only other way to discover what went wrong is an inquiry by Sir John Learmont. Derek Lewis, the director general of the Prison Service, also has many questions to answer.The danger is that they will not be called properly to account for their role in this affair. That call was echoed repeatedly by the prison’s board of visitors. Had the system been in place, the three prisoners might not have escaped.