Technical help for parents already exists; CompuServe is due to bring in a software filter in the near future to allow parents to make the choices that the German authorities have, for the moment, forced upon the company.Other such filters are already on the market And of course there is always the off switch. It is not a publisher.Those who post inappropriate material are dealt with expeditiously by their peers, their fellow-users in each news group. And, by all accounts, the anti-paedophile squads of the British police keep a careful watch on what is being posted in some discussions with a view to tracing criminals here, with some success.Moves to destroy parental guidance and responsibility should be condemned, especially when they lead to infringement of all adults' rights. It is a communications medium through which individuals talk over, argue, or laugh about what interests them.

Despite media huff and puff, the Internet can no more be described as anarchic than the telephone system or the postal service or a bag of apples. By forcing this company to boycott certain newsgroups, a state authority has usurped the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents within and without its territory.While the state authorities everywhere have a duty to uphold their own countries' laws on paedophilia and child pornography, this concern has been utilised to obscure the real issues around freedom of use of the Internet. Quite apart from the effect of their actions impinging on citizens in countries outside Germany, their partially successful pressure in getting CompuServe to drop 200 newsgroups sets a precedent for unrepresentative and irresponsible censorship by the state authorities. The Internet is not a children's toy and should only ever be used by minors under adult supervision. It is difficult to believe that the US will gain the new hope or direction it craves from either man.. From Mr Jim Moody Sir: The attempts by German prosecutors to censor the Internet via CompuServe (report, 30 December) are misguided and dangerous. The US electorate, intermittently following the plot, hurtles from a touching belief in some fresh saviour to a renewed conviction that all politicians are rascals.Clinton or Dole? Government activism or anti-government activism? Both men are anti-ideological fixers and muddlers, who love the business of politics for its own sake.

In modern US politics, the weapons for halting government, for preventing anything being agreed, have become more powerful than the official 200-year-old machinery to promote compromise and decision. Both have become victims - as well as exponents - of the era of the perpetual political campaign: of vituperative chat shows; of concerted special-interest intimidation; and barrages of negative advertisements full of expertly crafted misrepresentation.At present, the government of the most powerful nation is "shut down" (because of the budget deficit dispute between Clinton and Gingrich) But this is just an absurd symptom of a wider deadlock. But it is also true that both have been savaged by the electorate for attempting to push through the policies that they were elected to enact: Clinton on health care, Gingrich on balancing the US budget. Both men are products of the electronic age in American politics - self- promoters rather than achievers. This was hailed as the dawning of a new era of Republican anti-government activism. Thirteen months later, Gingrich is one of the most hated men in American politics (a 29 per cent approval rating); the Democratic Party wallows, at almost every political level, in leaderless and idea-free disarray.Clinton's and Gingrich's troubles have been partly of their own making. On the first day of 1992, President George Bush, the victor of the Gulf, looked unassailable.

Eleven months later, he was defeated by the young Arkansas governor. This was portrayed as the birth of a new Democratic Party and a return to government activism.One year and one month ago, President Clinton was humbled by Newt Gingrich's sweeping victory in the congressional mid-term elections. The American electorate, once tolerably predictable, has experienced a kind of Gadarene giddiness in the past four years. US political forecasting is more than usually foolish at present. Both Dole and Clinton are fearsome campaigners, but are also notorious for their ability to put one foot in their mouth while shooting themselves in the other.

A Dole-Clinton campaign could resemble a self-demolition derby, with Clinton the favourite to collapse across the line first. But do not place large bets on this campaign. (Yes, the circus is here again: it starts in earnest with the Iowa caucuses on 12 February.) The sour, septuagenarian Senator Robert Dole is overwhelming favourite to become President Clinton's challenger in the autumn. Not "Jerusalem" - even if his arrow of desire did light the clouded hills on Saturday - but the one with which the Spurs fans tempted providence minutes before he struck: "If Shearer plays for England, so can I..."Goals: Marker (31) 1-0; Shearer (41) 2-0; Sheringham (54) 2-1.Blackburn Rovers (4-4-2): Flowers; Berg, Marker, Coleman, Kenna; Ripley, Batty, Bohinen, Holmes; Shearer, Newell (Warhurst, 77; McKinlay, 88). "There's a lot of football to be played between now and then," he said with a single-mindedness bordering on dourness, although Harford was prepared to suggest that the competition's format could trick his talisman into scoring for England."It might be that Alan is better in tournaments," he said, "because the games come in quick succession and there's a chance to work with people every day."Perhaps, though, he needs only to hear a certain song to find the inspiration.