I DO not know Stephen Booth and I would probably disagree with much of his political dictum but as Lafayette (was it?) once said: "I would fight to the death for his right to say it."

I served in the Canadian Armed Forces, joining in the belief that we should fight to preserve the Mother of Parliaments. We ride our high horse in Britain when it comes to human rights and political freedom we censure Saddam, the Beijing government, President Moi, the Greek Colonels and the Argentine Junta. Perversely we seem to treasure our Irish revolutionaries, Welsh separatists, neo-Fascists, Muslim fundamentalists. How many of these latter have plotted to overthrow the state, incited to commit criminal damage, without let or hindrance? To my knowledge, Mr Booth has done nothing more than avail himself of the right to freedom of speech and print for which we fought so long ago. Has he blown up the Houses of Parliament recently, or planted a bomb in a British high street or machine-gunned patrons of some Irish pub? Have his words resulted in any action inimical to the Rule of Law? If the British judiciary desires to retain even a fragment of its tattered reputation for justice, it had better reconsider its treatment of Mr Booth. This gentleman, for all I know, may nurture poisonous thoughts about Britain and its government. Which of us does not? And which of us does not express them at every opportunity? Are we all to be incarcerated in durance vile? The sole thought that emerges from this fiasco is that the British establishment may itself be slipping closer and closer into fascism.

Big Brother is watching you! It behoves us therefore to keep a close eye on Big Brother.

Colin Graham

Hornby Terrace

Morecambe

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.