LETTER: Double standards by Government over Paralympics

Disgracefully, one of the commerical sponsors of the Games, ATOS, is engaged by the Government in an exercise intended to remove disability allowances from as many people as possible, making the company an on-going target of protests by groups representing people with disabilties. Meanwhile, the Government is pressing ahead with its plans to close the Remploy factories, with no alternative employment provision for the people who work in them.

They will be thrown into the dole queues, joining hundreds and thousands of redundant public sector workers, at a time when forecasts of economic recovery are being adjusted downwards, thereby facing lasting poverty. If medals were awarded to governments, the ConDems would get gold for hypocrisy and heartlessness.

ROGER BANNISTER