Letter: Victims of their own success

THE tone of 'Lib Dems in new dispute over 'racism' ' was scandalous (27 March). Since taking over the control of education from the Inner London Education Authority in 1990, the Liberal Democrat administration here has doubled the number of Bengali teachers employed, excluding those employed under Section 11 (language support grant) funding. Is that what you would expect of a racist council?

The supposedly racist Lib Dems had bid for - and won - the highest level of Section 11 funding in the country. Since the Government cut the funding it is this council that led the campaign to persuade them to reverse that decision. You failed to reflect on the difficulties of the decisions we were forced to make due to the government-imposed cutback. If we had preserved, in total, the Section 11 monies we would have been forced to make significant cuts in other important services including general teachers. The difficulties we are faced with now are substantially due to our success in obtaining significant resources for ethnic minority communities in the past.

Peter Hughes

Leader, Tower Hamlets Council

London E14