ON May 22 Radio 4 News Martin Bell said that landmine production should be stopped.

The same evening the recently-elected Labour government announced that manufacture of landmines is to cease and the sale of them to other countries will be ended.

Also to be welcomed is the decision to examine the circumstances under which soldiers in the First World War were executed for so-called cowardice, as traumatic stress syndrome, with consequent mental breakdown, in those days was completely unknown.

The several common-sense reforms which the new government have so quickly implemented are both refreshing and breathtaking for the speed in which decisions are being made, giving the electorate new hope through positive government.

Ray Butler (Letters, May 24) observed that the silence in your Letters Page from previously voluble Conservative supporters is deafening, and I have noticed that.

ALBERT MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.

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