INCLUDED in the motion moved by Coun Don Rishton and supported by 20 of his Socialist colleagues at the last Blackburn Council meeting, setting out projected plans for education if unitary authority status is achieved, were the ending of any selective intake criteria by secondary schools and the ending of opting out and grant-maintained status.

These were to cut out selectivity on social grounds!

The following evening you carried a letter on the European Union from Coun Rishton as chairman of the Lancashire South Constituency Labour Party.

As chairman of such, how does he condone his MEP's choice of a grammar school for his child? Not to mention Tony Blair's and Harriet Harman's choices for their children.

And there are many others, locally and nationally, from his party who, as parents, make a similar choice.

The Blackburn Conservative group followed the Socialist motion with one expressing understanding of the choice of parents who put the future of their own children above their party dogma. As Labour's Chief Whip, Donald Dewar, said in supporting the Harman choice: "If you ask me to endorse the principle that someone should victimise their child for political reasons, then I think that would be an ideology that would be cruel and harsh."

Our motion never went to full debate being quickly "gagged" by Labour - a further demonstration of the cynical hypocrisy from a party claiming to be so democratic and supportive of "full and open debate."

COUN J TARBUCK (Secretary, Conservative group, Blackburn Council), The Crescent, Cherry Tree, Blackburn.

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