Uniform is good for our schools

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 26, 2004

About the school uniform, my son attends St Mary's RC Comprehensive in Benton and he is at the centre of the uniform row.

Now I am all for the uniform, I think it's great and I believe the teachers try really hard to keep all the children looking smart and I cannot understand parents sending them there if they are not happy with them wearing a uniform. They are expensive, I must admit, but they do look very smart and a lot of children were getting really out of hand, coming in all sorts and bringing the tone of the school down. I think it is a wonderful idea and I have not heard of any children being turned away from exams because they had the wrong colour socks on.

They do check the uniform on the pupils and I'm all for it and I can't understand parents fighting it as it's all for the good of the school.

Mind you, in saying that, I do think one or two of the teachers could do with smartening themselves up.

Mrs VALERIE McDONALD, Fenham, Newcastle.

No room in local school

I'M absolutely disgusted. I have lived in Westerhope for seven years.

My daughter goes to primary school and is due to start high school in September. I received the form and was given three choices. I put Kenton, All Saints then Walbottle and she hasn't been given a place in any of them, so I have had to appeal.

Mrs JACKIE BEAN, Westerhope.

Let's stand on own feet

YOU ask on page 16 of The Chronicle, June 19 "Do you think Britain should leave the European Community?" The answer should be yes! From anyone and everyone who fears what is happening to our country.

Our Prime Minister has betrayed our country in the most blatant and treacherous manner possible by signing a document on June 18 which totally surrenders our country to foreign rule. The document he signed hands over complete control of foreign policy. Defence, criminal justice, asylum, economy, employment and sovereignty.

What this means is our parliament will become a bunch of messenger boys carrying out the orders of Brussels and the European Parliament. We will, each and everyone of us, be under European Community Law and regulation. That is fact, as set out in clear precise terms within the pages of the press. It is a fact and I have it in black and white, according to clauses in certain treaties.

All of Britain's oil wealth in the North Sea and all Britain's gold and dollar reserves can be laid claim to as a "European Resource" by the faceless bureaucrats of the European Parliament.

Our Prime Minister knows this and couldn't care less because he dreams of one day of being a President of a United States of Europe.

Let us stand on our own feet, as a free independent sovereign state, trading with the world as we have always done; let us withdraw from the European quagmire, NOW!

ERNEST WATSON, Bradwell Road, Park View Court, North Kenton, Newcastle.

Oppression is all around

I READ Clare Woodall's comments on safe havens with great interest and as a member of Amnesty International I guess she'll be acquainted with the term genocide?

To the average person, however, there is no distinction between it and the horrors of mass murder and ethnic cleansing, but it involves a lot more than sheer butchery.

Hitler and Stalin were ultimately responsible for the deaths of untold millions through war and persecution. Yet they both knew that, in order to achieve their Utopian dreams of a chosen few controlling the lives of many, it would be necessary to first demoralise, then destroy all those things which gave their enemies strength, ie religion, language, culture, tradition and ethnic identity.

Such oppression belongs in the past but still it happens, and nowhere more freely than here in England. So Ms Woodall, I wonder if the English are as deserving of your help, or is it reserved for those from far off lands?

MICHAEL BROWN, South Hylton, Sunderland