HAVE New Labour bottled out? All this rumpus over a student not being selected for university is utter bolony.

No doubt there will be hundreds, possibly thousands, who will not be selected for their first choice.

For Labour's ministers to screech and scream is much ado about nothing. Should they not be putting all their energies and financial clout bringing general education up to the standards of private schools.

Remember, many parents scratch and scrape to put their children through private education, for they can see the folly of state education. It makes one cringe to listen to Labour decry the benefits of these great centres of learning.

Might the truth of these outrageous outbursts be much deeper and more sinister and an attempt to gerrymander. For did not Labour have bad results at the last election in its heartlands in the North East, where this student came from.

Many prominent members of this administration have their base there. Mandelson, Byers, even Tony himself, to mention but a few.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.