Well this will help the conservatives shake off that stuffy, old-fashioned image!

Edward Bullen, Birmingham,

How should our current generation 'emulate the Victorians'? Perhaps by sending small children up the chimneys or to work for eighteen hours a day in the factories that contributed to England's Victorian greatness? Or maybe by sentimentalising childhood on the one hand while ignoring the explosion of poverty and child prostitution in the city centres?

Jane Purcell, London, UK

The UNICEF report is a terrible inditement of our country, and of the climate in which children are brought up. Children of all backgrounds can learn, develop their talents, enjoy their lives--if their parents put family before selves, if teachers teach rather than hold the ring, if they are taught about treating others as they would have themselves treated, if their church leaders have the courage to say what the traditional beliefs of this country are, in other words, that they are taught why it is right to be polite and why it is wrong to swear. Clearly, the UK is very, very far from such an ideal.

Jonathan Story, Fontainebleau, France