The school behaved foolishly in discriminating against her and describing the bangle as jewellery. All Sikhs, both men and women, have five special items which show they are Sikhs, called the five Ks because, in Punjabi, each begins with the letter K. The kara is the thin steel band worn on the right wrist. Monty Panesar, the England spin bowler, always wears one.

As someone who served with Sikhs in the Indian Army and admired their bravery, their impeccable appearance in uniform, and their work ethic, I am angered to see them insulted. Thousands were killed and wounded fighting for this country in two World Wars. They won innumerable decorations, including several Victoria Crosses.

When they went to Buckingham Palace to receive their VCs, the King didn't ask, "Why are you wearing
that bangle? And why weren't you wearing a steel helmet when you
won your VC?" He just said, "Well done." I never thought that, all these years later, Sikhs would be insulted in this way.

This case has nothing in common with that of the Muslim pupil who suddenly decided to flout school rules by wearing the jilbab dress, even though Muslim girls at the school had no difficulty in abiding by the rules. That was a deliberate provocation, engineered by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The judge in the Sikh case was right to warn that the verdict must not be exploited. There was "an enormous difference between rulings allowing schools to ban the Muslim niqab or jilbab and the unostentatious and very small bangle". This was British justice at its finest, and fairest.



IT IS time we got tough with the Green Luddites who disrupt genetically-modified crop trials. A trial into GM potatoes organised by Leeds University is the latest to be vandalised.

By any sensible standard, this is criminal damage. The people responsible should be jailed, and kept in jail until there is a guarantee of their future and behaviour. No doubt they feel superior to the yobs who cause trouble on the streets but in fact they are no better.

These people are experts in producing scare stories that alarm local people unnecessarily, by creating hysteria about alleged contamination.

Publishing full details of forthcoming trials in advance plays into their hands. Farmers taking part in the trials have been intimidated and threatened.

They even dress up in Frankenstein masks for the TV cameras and
predict all kinds of disaster. Their invention of the term "Frankenstein foods" is a masterstroke of lying propaganda.

Their sabotage has inflicted immeasurable damage on any attempt to investigate the facts about GM food. They would rather vandalise crops than let experiments give the answer about their safety. They are probably costing this country billions by their nihilism.

Benefits claimed for GM crops include increases in yields, reduction in pesticide use and reduced soil erosion.

The first major GM crop with direct consumer benefits, low-saturated-fat soya beans has been on sale in the US for nearly 10 years.

GM foods and crops have been grown and eaten for many years without even a hint of health problems. They are the most tightly regulated crops there have ever been, with nearly 100m acres of GM crops in the US alone. But ignorance about them makes people vulnerable to claptrap from anti-GM propagandists. The obvious answer is to run organised tests and the Luddites should be slapped down when they disrupt them.

THE Chief Constable of Northumbria says the public must face up to anti-social yobs. Brave talk, but look what happens when someone follows his advice.

A former policewoman, after being woken for the third time in
one night by a group of drunken and noisy students, went outside
and shouted at them: "Why can't you go back to where you come
from? I bet your families and neighbours wouldn't put up with it." She also reported the incident to the police, who came and dispersed the eight students.

Four months later, the 51-year-old grandmother was arrested and accused of using "racially aggravated words or behaviour". It turned out that the group included two Asians who had complained to the police, and she had to appear in the magistrates' court.

Eventually, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charge, even though they had told the police to prosecute in the first place.

Two questions. Why do the police and the CPS lose their marbles at any mention of racism?

And are you surprised that a high percentage of our citizens would like to emigrate to get out of this politically-correct madhouse?