THE far left, the Scargillites and day-before-yesterday's men, have to find a target for their fury at having become politically irrelevant, and the usual target is, naturally enough, the United States, the most powerful country in the world and a successful free enterprise democracy.

Understandable as this may be, Alan E Hughes's ranting on about the CIA, oil money, bombing innocent civilians and friendly fire does become tedious, reminding me of how tired I became, during 17 years' teaching in Scotland, of hearing how that country's industrial decline was due to "the English" rather than to a constantly striking workforce infested with Mr Hughes's co-religionaries.

Civilian and friendly fire casualties occur in any war. In the First World War, creeping barrages not infrequently fell on the troops for whom they should have been clearing the way; a number of the aircraft shot down by ground fire at Pearl Harbour were American; and Second World War naval gunners were notorious for blazing away at any aircraft which came within shooting distance.

I don't need to read back numbers of newspapers to know that the cry of "we was robbed" comes down from time immemorial, and was naturally used when the philandering Clinton's wimpish vice-president lost to George Bush. Had the election been "illegitimate," the US Senate and House of Representatives had ample means of declaring it null and void.

Mr Hughes accuses me of naivety. The same accusation was levelled at the boy who dared to say that the Emperor was naked, and if I am naive in declaring that the primary purpose of the Race Relations Board and Equal Opportunities Commission is to impose yet another unnecessary layer of nanny-state bureaucracy on the British nation, whilst creating lots of lucrative jobs for the boys (and girls) and kowtowing to the abominable "political correctness" (imported from America), I am confident that this naivety is shared by a large percentage of my fellow countrymen.

G Connell, Bromiley Rd, Lytham St Annes