Let’s save the 25,000 jobs built on steel

IT IS no surprise British Steel is in financial meltdown. Surely this is due to the incompetent handling of Government contracts.

A contract was given to Spain to manufacture British Army vehicles made with Swedish steel.

The British Steel industry employs 25,000 workers including suppliers, so the Government should do everything possible to bring back manufacturing.

JOHN HANCOCK, Ellesmere Port, Wirral. WHEN are we going to wake up to the fact this country comes first? The Government prevaricates over a loan of a few million pounds to save an industry that is vital to this country, yet splashes billions on foreign aid, large amounts of which just disappear into thin air.

It’s time to cut this bloated, outofdate, feel-good project and spend the money at home, where it is desperately needed.

A. B. MEDLEY, Wakefield, W. Yorks.

Doomed to fail

OF COURSE Theresa May has failed, but she is not a failure. The failure lies entirely with MPs who decided to play politics instead of sitting down together and working out how to get the best deal.

Mrs May did what she could, but the personal ambitions of other Tories and the power-mad Jeremy Corbyn prevented any chance of a decent divorce settlement. R. S. C. McNEILE McCORMICK,

Bridgewater, South Australia. MRS MAy was undone because she expected everyone else to be sensible. No chance of that with self-serving politicians.

She will be vindicated when the next Prime Minister makes an even bigger mess.

MIKE BARNES, Chester.

Exam stress

A FORMER primary teacher decries SATs, citing the stress on pupils (Letters). SATs are a formal process for establishing whether schools are delivering the national curriculum to those in their care.

They provide a means of identifying inadequate teaching that might otherwise go undetected. Ensuring schools adhere to a test regime that can’t be manipulated is clearly essential.

Those who suggest pupil stress is a reason for abandoning SATs may not be entirely impartial.

M. J. DAVY, Chester.

Equal opportunities

OXFORD University’s commitment to recruiting a higher proportion of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds (Mail) is to be applauded, but as a headteacher, I question the proposal to make lower conditional offers to these applicants.

There is a risk that such candidates will struggle with the demanding content of degree courses in maths and science.

Lower offers would not be necessary if there was an incentive for independent schools to admit pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to their sixth-forms, where they would benefit from outstanding A-level teaching in small classes. Re-routing state pupil funding to participating schools would offset the cost of fees and the net cost to the taxpayer would be zero.

Oxford University may become less embarrassed by its high percentage of independently educated students if it could be shown the cohort includes a significant number from disadvantaged backgrounds.

RICHARD RUSSELL, Colfe’s School, London SE12. THERE is one group missing from the pupils with disadvantaged backgrounds who could win a place at Oxford with lower grades: white working-class boys.

They struggle the most in terms of educational achievement, but academics and the metropolitan elite have never shown any concern for them.

They are expected to carry on doing all the low-paid, dirty and dangerous jobs and be front-line troops in our Armed Forces.

TED SHORTER, Tonbridge, Kent.