Chester Chronicle letters

Dec 17 2004

IT IS A great shame that even after the Schools Organisation Committee's decision to close Kingsway High School, the attacks on the school continue.

The claims, counter-claims and insults are extremely insensitive and the LEA officers ought to be bold enough to accept the fact that the staff, parents and campaigners will be venting off some anger and frustration. Let them do so without adding insult to injury. This anger is understandable, not just at the decision, but at the whole way the school has been treated since March this year.

I have learnt an awful lot from my involvement with Kingsway and my personal battle against the system is far from over. We were all told that the decision about Kingsway's future would be made in a fair, open and consultative manner. What happened was anything but.

The process as it stands meant that the LEA, with all of its financial, legal and staffing resources, set about producing the case for closure. It was down to the staff, governors and Parents and Friends Action Group to produce the case against closure, using whatever resources they could muster. The fact that they had to pay the legal fees incurred in producing their case from donations, raffles and other various sponsored events is a disgrace. How can such a system be deemed to be fair?

I believe that there is a strong argument for involving a truly independent body from the outset when a school's future needs to be assessed. This body should represent ALL parties equally - the LEA, staff, governors, parents and pupils.

After a valiant attempt by the school's supporters, the decision over Kingsway's future was to be made by the independent Schools Organisation Committee (SOC). Was this stage of the process fair? Well, if a councillor publicly opposes a planning application, they cannot vote as a member of the planning committee: Similarly, if a councillor publicly opposes a licensing application, they cannot subsequently vote as a member of the licensing committee. Why then, can councillors who publicly voted in favour of a school closing then sit on an INDEPENDENT SOC?

There are going to be times in years to come where the future of a school needs to be decided, and I will do my damnedest to make sure that these schools will not be subjected to the grossly unfair, one-sided, non-consultative charade that Kingsway supporters were subjected to.
PAUL OFFER City of Chester Conservative PPC

THE wife of a New York property tycoon once famously remarked 'only little people pay taxes'. The hunting lobby seem to believe that 'only little people obey the law.'

Time has run out for them at last. The unelected pro-hunting landowners and businessmen in the House of Lords can no longer obstruct the wishes of the 70% of the public and our democratically elected representatives who want a ban on hunting.

They have used every legalistic trick in the book to prevent this law from passing and abused the limited constitutional role of the House of Lords by trying to use it to gut legislation rather than just improve the detail of it, the extremists in the hunting lobby now insouciantly announce that - after all that - they don't actually recognise any obligation to obey any law they don't like.

Naturally, this right to disobey the law isn't a right they think ordinary people have. It's just a special privilege that goes with hunt membership.

Let's hope that the newspaper columnists, Tory prospective parliamentary candidates and others who noisily call for law and order to be applied to ordinary people will condemn this arrogant attitude. After all, they wouldn't want to be accused of hypocrisy, would they?
CHRISTOPHER CLAYTON Waverton

THE UK Independence Party walks on the periphery of politics - so far to the right that you need a telescope to spot them!

Ninety-nine percent of their time is spent on the policy to withdraw Britain from the European Union (The Socialist Corporate Superstate). The remaining one percent is a geared towards a pithy side-show of policies that seem to focus on Asylum Seekers.

People who support UKIP don't seem to realise that the world has moved on from the nineteenth century. The idea of Britain reverting back to its 'Splendid Isolation' is a fairytale.

Like it or loath it, we live in a world that has been shaped by globalisation; a world that has become increasingly independent; a world where national borders have been erased.

It would be useful if UKIP supporters remembered why the European Union came into being.

It has been a fifty year process, but the Coal and Steel authority, the Foreign and Security policy and the Common Agricultural policy have all brought stability between nations where once there was war. It is the ties that bind.

We are Europeans. Our ancestry and national identity has been formed by settlers who came to Britain from Europe: Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

Yet those who support UKIP seem to think that the British identity is genetically impervious, organically homogeneous and superior to all other races.

Dr Alan Sked (Former UKIP leader) made this following statement: 'When I founded the party it had clear principals. It had no truck with racism or xenophobia. All these principles have been abandoned.'

Indeed, UKIP have evolved into a racist, bigoted, neo-facist party, which has an unofficial pact with the BNP and other far-right groups.

I have always believed that Britain is a multicultural society with a diversity of views. But there is a small minority of people in this country who want to play on people's insecurities and stir up trouble.
JONATHAN DERRY Firtree Avenue Westminster Park Chester