Thaksin hardly the epitome of leadership

I disagree! Thaksin's brand of leadership was dictatorial and dysfunctional. The dysfunction stemmed from his severe lack of self knowledge. We have been witnessing the serious consequences of a "controller" who wasn't, and still isn't, in touch with his self. Thailand has paid a heavy price in electing a PM who projected unresolved hurt and unfulfilled intimacy needs onto his nation. And he's still doing it, of course.

Everything the man turns his hand to will eventually implode because it has been directed solely towards his own self-aggrandisement; the current plight of Manchester City is a microcosm of how his dysfunctional world works. His ability to hoodwink so many people is the equivalent of the school bully convincing gullible teachers to appoint him as school captain. On a par with Zimbabwe's President Mugabe, Thaksin Shinawatra is not a well man.

With regards to Abhisit Vejjajiva, the harsh criticism he is currently receiving is a testimony to his intelligence and overall potential. Nobody would have tackled his predecessors in such a way, because they were incapable of understanding or acting on such criticism.

For the first time since Chuan Leekpai, Thailand has been blessed with someone who has the makings of being a great leader.

"...of the good leader, who talks little,

When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,

They will all say:, 'We did this ourselves.' " - Lao Zi

For the good of this nation, Khun Abhisit must be given a decent chance.

JOHN SHEPHERD

BANGKOK

New visa rules wiping smiles off tourist faces

He may get shoes thrown at him in Iraq, but George W Bush would seem to have admirers at Thai Immigration: the reduction to 15 days for tourist permits at land borders shows the same disregard for innocent bystanders as in the so-called "war on terror".

Can Immigration really not think of a way to clamp down on visa-runners without harming bona-fide tourists - or do they just not care? Shouldn't it be easy, with a computer, to keep track of the total time spent in the country (over all visits) and to limit that instead? Or indeed to distinguish between those re-entering the country having only just left it and those entering it for the first time (and needing 20 to 30 days to travel properly across such a large nation)?

Insufficient warning of the change was given, and by the time you found out, at the border, it was too late: you had already left the other country. The information at the official website (www.immigration.go.th -possibly the only authoritative source of information online) is threadbare and incorrect: if you enter your nationality as UK or US, for example, it (still) says "Allowed 30 days for tourism without visa". No mention of the change in rules.

It is so easy to keep a website up to date - all a person has to do is type the correct information into a computer - and not to do so suggests little respect for one's users.

The same website invites you to "file a complaint" online. I did so once, but the only answer ever was an automatic message saying: "Get back to you as soon as possible." Send your comment by post and the result is the same, a sheer waste of your time.

Few of those who work at Immigration seem to regard it as a service to help tourists; just as few appear to have read the TAT's marketing of Thailand as the "Land of Smiles".

Much as we dislike having to do so, we foreigners are probably correct in complaining, because nobody else will, and most well-run organisations value complaints as a means to raise their standards. But ultimately we can always vote with our feet and go elsewhere.

Would not Thai taxpayers, on the other hand, prefer Immigration to do rather more, in this year of all years, to make the most of Thailand's fortuitous position at the geographical "heart" of Asean, a position which mirrors that of France, by no coincidence the most-visited country in Europe (and the world)?

MAX VERNON

GERMANY