What seems to rile him is that "Buthelezi has snarled his way through the good times and the bad" and now has greater support in KwaZulu Natal than ever before The ANC's seduction of King Goodwill has backfired. The traditional nation stands firmly behind Inkatha and Chief Buthelezi and are favourites to win the KwaZulu Natal election. John AspinallLondon SW1. Lewis Wolpert complains of "genetic pornography" (Hypotheses, Review, 12 May) but does not stop to consider who the pornographers might be. In the case he cites of the mouse with a human ear-shaped piece of tissue on its back, it is surely the scientists themselves who are to blame. It is curious that while Wolpert celebrates the "clinical geneticists" who work on the blood disease thalassemia, he manages to phrase the mouse anecdote in such a way that one might believe no people were responsible for this tasteless and scientifically worthless publicity stunt. Hugh Aldersey-WilliamsLondon N19. The problem for the Roman Catholic Church in England is simply one of any organisation that must undergo a radical reorientation to survive, but which has not had the courage to do so ("Editor to quit as furore rocks Catholic Church", 12 May). The reason for such fundamental change is that its core self-understanding - which originated in the mid-19th century with a restored hierarchy committed to attaining the "conversion of England" and its return to Rome - has now been tried and found wanting. This "restorationist" vision, once common in many European countries that experienced the Protestant Reformation, was based on a medieval model in which Catholicism was seen as a structural principle of society.

So different is the cultural pluralism of modern liberal democracy that such a model has been found impossible to transplant: this incompatibility can also be seen in Islamic states. Though many still hanker after the past the only viable contemporary position for the church, indeed any religion, is that of a catalyst to critical reflection on society and as a vehicle for ethical ideals. In other words a prophetic church.The implied degree of change and reassessment is comparable to that necessary in Russia after the collapse of Communism. Though demanding extraordinary courage such a change was decisively opted for at Vatican II as being the only viable future for the church. Those who cannot or will not grasp this and the reasons for it will only contribute to failure and embarrassment of the church however pious or well-intentioned they may be.Fr Dominic KirkhamCanons Regular of Premontre, Manchester. Stephen Roach ("Guru of 'downsizing' admits he got it all wrong", 12 May) is breathtakingly arrogant in assuming that his "theory" was an original contribution to economic thought. In every one of the 20 or so slumps since the late 18th century, workers en masse have been thrown on to the scrap-heap in pursuit of maintaining the rate of profit.

Mr Roach says: "If all you do is cut you will eventually be left with nothing". Another theorist pointed out that new technology and smart business practices might improve the performance of individual firms in the short run, but one man's meat will be poison for the system as a whole, since value (wealth) is only created by human labour power. Of course, as every schoolchild has been told, Karl Marx's ideas are as dead as his body. Trouble is, they just won't lie down. John CharltonUniversity of Leeds. Those people I talked to last week who were unconnected with politics professionally - neither politicians themselves nor political journalists - were more interested in what they took to be Mr Tony Blair's proposed abolition of Question Time than in the froideur between Mr Peter Mandelson and Mr Gordon Brown The reason is, I think, fairly evident. Mr Brown is that saturnine and slightly surly Scotsman who is forever mumbling about education and training.

If people realise that he plans also to abolish family allowances for the 16- to 18-year-olds in full- time education, their opinion of him sinks even lower. Of Mr Mandelson, by contrast, they hold no opinion of any kind. He is as remote from their interests and preoccupations as, say, Sir Thomas Bingham, Lord Dacre or Mr Simon Raven, all persons who are or have been written about extensively in the broadsheet papers and the weekly journals. Mr Mandelson is of this select group. Honorary president of the Royal College of Spindoctors he may be But most people do not know what a spindoctor is. Indeed, that is the question I am now most commonly asked: what, please, is a spindoctor? The next most common is: what exactly is a soundbite?Mind you, I make no claim to have my finger on the great throbbing pulse of popular opinion.