Sir - ,GB Dipper's most recent letter clearly demonstrates a lack of awareness of this country's great history.

In August 1819 a crowd of between 60,000 and 80,000 gathered in St. Peter's Field, Manchester to demand parliamentary reform. Local magistrates called on the military to arrest the ring leaders - instead the cavalry charged the crowd, killing 15 and injuring up to 700 attendees. This was of course the Peterloo Massacre.

Parliament's response to this popular meeting was to pass six gagging acts, the introduction to each read "every meeting for radical reform is an overt act of treasonable conspiracy against the King and His government."

One hundred years later, despite repeated government attempts to prevent demands for radical reform being promulgated across the land, the franchise was eventually extended to all men and women aged 21 and over.

When GB Dipper applauds the government for tackling radical ideologies by attempting to silence their proselytes he appears to have forgotten that it is because previous governments have singularly failed to prevent the popular support for radical ideologies that he has the franchise himself.

Perhaps that concept is a little too 'lefty' for him.

Robyn Norfolk.

Worcester