One of my sisters is a retired newspaper publisher and she has always told me that newspapers (in the U.S. anyway) are supposed to print all letters to the editor. Of course, they get around this because there's no law that obligates them to do it. But in the spirit of free speech newspapers are obligated to allow people to voice their opinions on issues if there is no libel issues for the publication.

My sister told me that if a letter one writes doesn't get published, to call the newspaper editor and ask why, and even insist that that publish it. If it's too long, tell them you'll rewrite it. Again, I don't know how the UK publications operate in this regard. That's why I limited mine to 250 words.

My motto has always been: "The squeaky wheel gets greased." So persistence does work.