No discrimination against UK Catholics

I read with mounting disbelief Ms Fiorella De Maria's letter (The Sunday Times, April 17). She paints a picture of England as a country where Catholics are in danger of being abused by every non-Catholic they meet. Before my recent retirement, I worked for the Transport and General Workers Union for 28 years. During this period I specialised in defending members in cases of discrimination.

This discrimination related to equal pay, sex, race, sexual orientation and disability. During the whole of my working career as a union official, and as a bus driver, merchant seaman and fish production worker, I never once even heard of any religious discrimination against Catholics. I heard of complaints about "religion" but it was about religion in general, from those who professed to be anti-religious and objected to anything that remotely interfered with their particular outlook.

The only discrimination I knew of was the terrible treatment the Protestants meted out to the Catholics in Northern Ireland, which needed a law to stop religious discrimination. Incidentally, the Discrimination Act has been extended on the British mainland to encompass religion, but not because of anti-Catholicism but to protect Muslims, primarily.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, although not a Catholic, attends Mass. His wife Cherie is a practising Catholic. The current Minister of Education is a serious practising Catholic to the point of being a member of Opus Dei.

There is a large body of opinion that is critical of the British law that forbids a Catholic acceding to the British throne as being outdated and an affront to fairness. This surely dispels the picture painted by Ms De Maria.

I am not saying that some imbeciles do not attack anything which is not Protestant, but they are a very tiny minority. If Ms De Maria has met more than one, she must very unlucky. Certainly the picture she paints is non-existent in mainland Great Britain - Northern Ireland being the exception to our dismay.

Purely as a matter of explanation, I was baptised as a Catholic, was sent to a Church of England Sunday School (it was the only one open that allowed my parents a break from the 'brood' on a Sunday afternoon) and have rarely attended church since. So I have nothing to defend or attack, except the good name of millions of UK citizens, who practise numerous religions.