Letter: Angry reaction to government veto of universities' pay settlement

Sir: The refusal of the Government to ratify the settlement on academic salaries (report, 17 July) - agreed by the negotiating machinery set up for that purpose - shows how little it really believes in the principle of subsidiarity.

The continuing persecution faced by the universities since 1979 is an ideological one not so very dissimilar to the Cultural Revolution of Mao Tse-tung in which he punished an academia which had unwittingly offended him in youth.

That, too, was driven by one man's vision of a classless society. When are we to be issued with John Major's little red book?

Yours faithfully,

DAVID J. B. MURIE

Senior Programmer

University of Dundee

Computing Service

Dundee