Letter: Child workers are already doing too much too young

WHEN I read Neal Ascherson's tongue-in-cheek column I was overcome by a sense of deja vu which sent me burrowing in dusty old files.

There I found what I was looking for: an excerpt from an article in the Daily Telegraph, written in early 1990 by Roger Scruton. It read: 'We must recuperate yet another Victorian value: that of child labour. Many a 14-year-old, set to work as a builder's apprentice, an electrician's mate or a stable hand, will learn far more than he could ever learn at school, while acquiring independence, responsibility and self-respect. If the pay were sufficiently low - and children are willing to work for quite paltry sums - there would be no lack of employers ready to offer it.'

The terrifying thing is that already such a suggestion no longer seems as outlandish and ludicrous as it did three years ago. Who would have imagined that so many things we took for granted - improving social conditions, education, health care and public transport, for example - could be systematically wiped out in such a short space of time?

Sasha Lubetkin

Winchester