Rarely have TES readers been treated to such a brazen public confession of self-interested cowardice than that provided by Steve Devrell’s letter (“Unions make it an unhappy Easter”, TES, May 4).
It is bad enough that he is taken in by the bizarre annual Easter media set-up of a bunch of unrepresentative Trots at one conference. But to tar thousands of other resectable, hard-working representatives of teacher unions - upon whom he says he would happily depend if the need arose - with the same brush is an exercise in hypocrisy unparalleled in teacher affairs for many a year.
Nigel de Gruchy General secretary National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, 5 King Street Covent Garden, London WC2
