I ENDORSE the views of your correspondents, Mesdames Robinson and Eastham, regarding flying the Union flag. However, such a practice, were it to be implemented, could be anathema to the vast majority of Labour and Lib-Democrat councillors and MPs the length and breadth of this country.

If memory serves me right, at the time of the Gulf War, Hyndburn Labour Council forbade a taxi driver to continue to display two Union flag transfers that he had had the termerity to affix to his vehicle.

Over the past 20 years this country has been effectively ruled by an anti-British left-wing Liberal consensus, actively supported by both main political parties.

The slightest expression of nationalism or display of patriotism is vilified and the few right-wing politicians who dare to give vent to such practices are labelled Nazis or Fascists, despite the fact that their views are supported by the indigenous silent majority.

The several million immigrants now settled into this country are encouraged, and rightly so, to maintain their own beliefs and traditions, yet the very same left-wing Liberal ideologists who encourage this seek to destroy British traditions, history and culture.

As the great English patriot Enoch Powell said many years ago: "It is not the enemy without we need fear, it is the enemy within."

Tony Blair says that he is a British patriot. Let him prove it by issuing an edict that the Union flag is flown on public buildings at all times. Something the Tories ought to have done years ago.

JOHN FIELDING, St Cecilia Street, Great Harwood.

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