IT WAS, I feel, a bit rich of Citizen Smith to unconditionally back local business people over the application of laws to protect young people of school age from threats to their safety from possible unscrupulous employers..

I refer, of course, to his comments on the article headed County kicks kids out of kitchen' last week. I think this is very worrying.

I am not saying that Mitchell's would knowingly put young workers in danger but I am saying that there are more than a few employers who would and the trite jibes of Citizen Smith only add to my concerns and those of other trade unionists in the area.

Is this not the same area where four railway workers were recently killed in an incident at Tebay by privatised, changed working practices and where 24 Chinese workers needlessly drowned under seemingly unregulated circumstances?

You would not get that impression from the comments about political correctness, numpties', pen pushers and bean counters at Lancashire County council which last week's column spewed out It is not madness' for the state to be utilised to protect working people, especially youngsters who can be intimidated, prevented from joining a trade union or even from having the proper conditions of service and job descriptions to which they should be entitled.

The fact that the loophole of employers using under 16s had to be blocked by applying European labour laws does not reflect well on the New Labour' county council either, by the way.

There should be a sea change in the next period of time to reject the abuse of the state against the interests of working people, for example by using the anti-union laws started by Maggie Thatcher and continued by Blair and Co. I can, for once, applaud the county council for setting this particular ball in motion, even though it probably couldn't get out of it anyway.

Steve Metcalfe, Lancaster.