OUR local comedy duo Segal and Beaman excelled themselves in Citizen last week. One accused me of being short on facts' in that capitalism has apparently solved unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness and fear of avoidable ill health while the other (the paranoid Beaman) says my statement that he will have to learn to face reality was a threat in classic McCarthyite style. First, who is short on facts? Millions suffer varying degrees of hunger and malnutrition in Britain alone while the most popular courses at many places of further education are adult literacy. Real and hidden homelessness also exists all over the UK see Lancaster's own homeless centre just off Moor Lane while about 32,000 people died from hypothermia last winter and unemployment has never been below a million since 1973, even with massive efforts to massage the figures. All the above problems reinforce each other they are endemic to a failed system. Now for the main course, which is the attack on the trades union movement by Citizen Smith, arising out of my defence of the county council's use of European labour laws to stop the possibly dangerous use of school age children by local employers. School age children should not have to go to work in any decent country to earn pocket money'. There is a strong case for state grants to be made available directly to prevent them having to neglect their studies and risk their health. This has already been done for 16 and 17-year-olds for the same reasons so why not for 13 to 16-year-olds? Put up the taxes of the richest sections of society to pay for this, I say. I repeat that it is very good to see the use of state power in favour of workers for a change. Bad laws that are used to obstruct and intimidate workers must be got rid of and politicians who support them removed from office. Abuse of young workers, often to avoid things like minimum wage legislation, belongs in the dustbin of history along with the excuses for it. Steve Metcalfe, Lancaster.