Badly out of tune with true cost of cutting music tuition

I WAS impressed that your publication had addressed the important issue of cuts in music education in the Lothians (It's time to face the music as cuts kick it, 18 May). Professor Bill Whyte's acknowledgment of the social spectrum, inclusion and opportunity music tuition offers was positive and informative. Then enter Rod Spark.

As a member of an "up and coming" band Mr Spark appears to be alarmingly out of touch with the music provision in our schools.

His suggestion that parents wanting their children to do well will seek private music tuition, at home, is not only misguided but offensive to those who cannot afford it.

Inclusion for all our musically gifted children is a must, not a luxury.

Many of the pupils who have spent their hard-earned money in Rod Sparks' rehearsal space learned their skills through the music instruction service which is neither elitist nor means- related.

Mr Spark is obviously ill-informed and unlikely to provide a solution for the impending deficit in the music service, free of charge, for these talented young musicians who are to lose their lessons.

Maybe if Mr Spark had spent more time investigating music in schools rather than choosing to refer to his own archaic experience he would have had a relevant opinion.

Joseph Beasley, Edinburgh

Out with the New and in with what?

David Miliband who is running in the leadership contest for the Labour Party has stated that New Labour is now dead in the water. He stated there would be no going back and New Labour was wrong.

Well if both old Labour and New Labour were both wrong and have to come to an end, what do they intend to put in its place, and what do they intend to call themselves in the future?

Will this party be anywhere near electable in the near future as it tears itself apart arguing whether old Labour or New Labour was right for the party?

Has this party now lost its way and what does the future hold for them and British politics if there is no serious opposition to the parties that hold power just now?

Many people will remember old Labour before the modernists took it over and told us that this was the right way for our country to go. They, along with the unions, messed our country up good and proper and no-one in their right mind would have put a cross on the ballot paper alongside their name in the past – that is why they lost the 1979 general election. Now we are being told that New Labour is not what they are about.

Where exactly are the Labour Party now that they have discovered that both old and New Labour is not what their ideals represent? And how long is it going to take for them to rebrand themselves as something else that the British electorate will want to vote for?

Andrew Murphy, High Street, Edinburgh

Proper education is priceless

MICHAEL Russell, the Scottish Government's education secretary, will surely look after our kids in primary school.

Youngsters must learn how to write well and to count confidently. They have to trust their own teacher. The very idea of "team teaching" (Teachers and 1.6m needed to hit city's class size target, 13 May) is crazy.

Who needs two teachers talking at once?

Investment in education for our young folk is vital for Scotland. Class size is important. Good teachers are like gold-dust.

Alasdair H Macinnes, Granton Road, Edinburgh

Fringe benefits of offering to help

Regarding the article on a vital Fringe campsite (Campsite 'is vital for the Fringe', 18 May), why not advertise for folk in Edinburgh to offer a room the for festival's duration to a group or artist. The cost? Tickets for their show.

I have a spare room and I know it's an outlying address but the 31 bus service is nice and regular.

Mick McCormack, Gilmerton Dykes Crescent, Edinburgh