Our health service is under threat of being dismantled, commercialisation is being encouraged, private-sector involvement is being promoted and local accountability is being undermined.

Sound familiar? But what a difference in response we have in health. GPs, nurses and hospitals are responding to the threat, and politicians have acted. What do we have in education?

Heads are running off with their bribes stuffed in their back pocket, teachers argue about their pensions, and a national educational service with direct local accountability has been destroyed. Next year some academies will fail financially, the following year children will fail because the curriculum being pursued does not meet their needs, and the year after we will have even more failure. Today, though, we have a failure to fight - a cowardice that belies the thousands who fought for universal state education.

Paul Silvester, Walkley, Sheffield.