I am very fortunate to be a top-rate taxpayer. If I wish to contribute my full annual allowance of £50,000 to my pension pot, it will cost me only £25,000. The taxpayer pays the other £25,000 – rather than paying, say, for an extra nurse or teacher. Even in good times, this would be hard to defend. In lean times, it is preposterous: a disgraceful example of how the current taxation regime gives most to the best-off at the expense of the majority. On this, at least, Ed Balls has got it absolutely right (Report, 12 March).
Joel Donovan
London
• Will the Guardian be printing, with pictures if available, all the names of the 16 Afghan people (including nine children) executed so shamelessly by one of America's finest as they slept (Report, 12 March)? Will the government orchestrate a memorial service to honour their bravery and courage for surviving to that terrible day the foreign occupation of their land by UK, European and US military?
Laila Namdarkhan
Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire
• Matthew Oakeshott declares "Some of us didn't realise how nasty the Tories can be" (Comment, 12 March). So that's why this most vindictive government has been given right of way. Just when did the Lib Dem spacecraft arrive on planet Earth?
Ric Carey
Southsea, Portsmouth
• Have I understood this right (Red meat raises risk of cancer or heart disease death, study finds, 13 March)? We should cut down on red meats and try to avoid bacon and ham altogether to increase our chances of living long enough to spend many years suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia?
Susan Tomes
London
• I've long thought I probably get a better impression of what's going on in America from Doonesbury than from any newspaper article. Now I know for sure (Letters, 13 March).
Ken Atkin
London
• Today I saw the first daffodils ripped-up and pavement-strewn…
Ray Chenery
Darwen, Lancashire