SIR - As a Brexit supporting, global warming sceptic I was amazed at the lamentable way in which Greta Thunberg’s speech was tolerated by the councillors of Bristol. It is quite apparent that Greta is a tool used by anti-western left wing socialists to undermine capitalism and the democratic values we enjoy.

In allowing schoolchildren a day off to listen to this drivel is tantamount to aiding and abetting a crime. Indeed, you can only allow your child to miss school if they’re too ill to go in or they have advanced permission from the school. However a statement, I assume by the council, read: “Roads will be closed, buses will be diverted and students will be out of school to join the environmental activist.”

No doubt thousands of workers wanting a day off wish they had the means to facilitate time out. For George Orwell’s newspeak we now have groupthink and as we know Orwell’s 1984 had a totalitarian superstate to meet the ideological requirements of English socialism. For “wrong thinkers” to disagree with Greta we are lambasted by the left with scornful labels such as ‘bigot’, ‘prude’, ‘xenophobe’ and worse. Welcome to dystopia.

D Hodgson, Falcon Road, Bingley