A step in the right direction might be for the Muslim parliament in London to pass a resolution condemning the violent activities of Islamic fundamentalists worldwide.Yours faithfully, RANDHIR SINGH BAINS Gants Hill, Essex. Sir: I am one of the many victims of the Mercury One-2-One "free Christmas call" promotional offer debacle reported in your story today ("Mercury lines flooded by free phone call offer", 27 December). This incident raises important issues about who was responsible, how the quality of telephone service should be monitored and how compensation should be paid to the victims. When I walked into the telephone store in late November, the salesman said: "You can have the Cellnet phone for £80 or the Mercury One-2-One M3Ol phone for £249. Take the One-2-One phone and you can call anywhere in the world for free on Christmas day aslong and as many times as you want." Based on a quick calculation that I would save at least £200 on Christmas Day phone charges calling Australia, Hong Kong and the US, I bought the One-2-One M3Ol phone.

It came in a Christmas package, which said in big white letters: "call the world for free on Christmas Day". My experience was almost as frustrating as Sally Pope's, as reported in your story. At 8.20 am on Christmas Day, I started trying to call my international telephone numbers. By 10:15pm, I had tried more than 150 times to reach my intended internationalnumbers on my One-2-One phone. Most annoying, whenever I tried to reach the One-2-One Customer Services number to complain about the failed service, there was never any reply.The primary fault for this debacle lies with the Department of Trade and Industry, which licensed One-2-One to provide a telephone service without verifying it had the capacity to provide an adequate service. The UK government has a responsibility to require that proper compensation be paid. The offers of compensation in your story today (£40 or £75) are derisory.Obviously, an individual that has been duped by One-2-One's promotional offer cannot, economically, obtain redress through the courts, because the damages to be recovered do not justify the court costs and other risks of litigation.I would like to see the DTI force One-2-One to provide a proper customer response service and to pay compensation to the victims of its promotional offer.

Only a government agency, which has the power to revoke One-2-One's licence, can achieve both of these objectives effectively and quickly.Yours faithfully, MICHAEL McNULTY London, NW827 December. Sir: Your expose of the fiddles of unemployment figures is extremely timely. The fact that the source for the details of Department of Employment statistical manipulation comes from within Whitehall and is not an opposition allegation makes them all the stronger. All this autumn I have been sitting in the Commons listening to the Prime Minister, Chancellor, Employment Secretary and sundry MPs denounce a statutory minimum wage as a job killer. So I wrote asking for details of countries which had one and their record of job creation. In the reply from the junior Employment Minister, Philip Oppenheim, a clear table listed major countries around the world that had statutory minimum wage systems and which had better job creation records, since 1980, than Britain. But when you published these figures, Mr Oppenheim wrote to you (letter, 21 December) to say that he had been wrong last week, and this week's statistical line from the DoE is that a statutory minimum wage does not help job creation.