AFTER reading Hilton Dawson's letter today I felt compelled to reply. I am one of the many Castle ward voters who decided against voting for Stanley Henig in last week's elections, as was my democratic right. I also believe that a democratic right in this country is that of freedom of speech.

Mr Dawson points out that the MacPherson report recommends that a definition of a racist incident should be "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person". It is obvious that Mr Dawson has interpreted the leaflet that many of us received through our letter boxes as such an incident. If this recommendation is taken up by the government, then we will all have to think extremely carefully before we speak in future. I believe that Mr Dawson was more accurate about the purpose of the offending leaflet when he said that "the use of a name is probably only meant to identify the former leader of the council". Names are indeed a useful tool of identification!

Perhaps I am naive, but I was completely unaware that Mr Henig is Jewish. Quite frankly, his religious bias is of no concern to me. I am only interested in the way he ran Lancaster City Council, and I'm sure that all the other voters in this ward were too. In choosing not to vote for Mr Henig, the only prejudice I was showing was against the political party he was representing.

Mr Dawson's point about propaganda being "reminiscent of fascist politics" is fair, however, would he deny that his own government actively engages in using propaganda? Attempting to convince us that NATO is not acting in violation of international law is just one recent example.

The reference to "those tempted to bring personalities into politics" in Mr Dawson's letter stinks of hypocrisy. Am I wrong in believing that it is Prime Minister Blair who has followed America's example by relying more on his personality than policies to win votes? If this is not the case, then what exactly are the functions of his spin doctors?

I look forward to Mr Dawson's reply.

Joanne Donnelly

via e-mail

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