HAVING spent Christmas in Poland (strange for a raging xenophobe) I was amused to catch up, on New Year's Eve, with the latest rant from Comrade Mecalfe in your letter columns. The fact that a 'Preston North' constituency does not exist perhaps indicates to your readers the accuracy of the rest of Comrade Metcalfe's hysterical ranting.

My wish for 2001, and I suspect I share it with many of your readers, is that Comrade Metcalfe joins us all in this century and leaves his Victorian view of 'the workers' in the past where it belongs. May I wish everybody a peaceful, happy and prosperous New Year.

Cllr Gregg Beaman, Carnforth