I SUPPORT your Opinion "Shoot meddler down," (LET, March 6) for condemning Defence Secretary Michael Portillo's use of an unelected "special adviser" with right wing credentials when considering defence contracts.

You ask "what right has this shadowy meddler to threaten the livelihoods of thousands of workers?" I couldn't agree more.

However, this "shadowy meddler" is none other than David Hart, special adviser to Margaret Thatcher during the 1984-5 miners' strike.

Their goal was the smashing of the National Union of Mineworkers and ultimately the whole trade union movement.

A multi-millionaire, Eton-educated and useful for writing Thatcher's strike-related speeches, he was also very close to Coal Board chairman Iain Macgregor.

What right had this backroom manipulator to advise a Prime Minister in her war against the miners which resulted in the decimation of the mines and their communities?

I don't remember you questioning the role of unelected right-wing advisers and their impact on thousands of jobs back then.

DAVE HEATON (Blackburn and Darwen New Communist Party), Leamington Road, Blackburn.

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