IN HIS article "Tyranny opt-out," (LET, February 28), like a rottweiler with distemper, John Blunt rounds on the education policy of the Labour council in Blackburn and demonstrates just why he is such a controversial journalist.

However, Mr Blunt, the comprehensive system is not Marxist ideology, which you would see if you checked the facts properly instead of making emotive statements.

Don't forget that both the Tories, pre-Margaret Thatcher, and the Liberals supported this system.

In your genius for twisting facts and trying to score cheap political points, you have deliberately ignored the fact that not all state comprehensives are bad.

And if they are not meeting standards, it isn't necessarily the scheme that is wrong, but that the fault probably lies with the deliberate lack of resources provided by the government and the terrible denigration of teachers and their work.

Having read the same reports as John Blunt, I interpreted them as saying that choice was still going to be maintained.

It's the Tories who so often behave like dictators and the Labour council isn't even a pale imitation of them and he knows it.

It isn't only his attitudes that are obtuse, but he himself is.

DUNCAN McVEE, Robin Bank Road, Darwen.

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