What twisted logic assumes that because voting was greater in the General Teaching Council for Wales election it is somehow more popular? Please allow me to explain why this is wholly false and why the GTCW is as loathed as its English counterpart.

In 2002, the Welsh Powys Association of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers proposed to national conference a motion that called for a campaign against the GTCs.

This was passed and the NASUWT is now the only teachers’ union to have a policy against the GTCs. In Wales this campaign took the form of a rigorous election drive. We decided that to ignore the GTCW would fill its ranks with government cronies and National Union of Teachers “collaborators”.

Given the complexities of the single transferable vote electoral process, our success was staggering. We won three out of the four secondary places and half of all the teachers elected. Had we won them all we would still not have a majority as the GTCW is a good old-fashioned quango which elects only a minority of its members.

The NASUWT is the largest teachers’ union in Wales and we worked hard to “get the vote out” in order to start our campaign of opposition. Please do not mistake this for support from teachers in Wales. Indeed the high vote meant quite the opposite of what you suggested, Neil Butler

7 Uchel Dre

Kerry, Newtown, Powys.