The brother of one of the dead Black Watch soldiers says: "He thought George W Bush was an ******** for starting a war over nothing, trying to get money and oil. That's what we all thought."

It is my opinion that the Black Watch have been ordered to assist America in a war crime.

My father-in-law enlisted in August 1914 on the promise he would be home by Christmas. He came back recovering from a bullet in his leg to take part in the great Brighton demob protest of January 1919.

I lived through the Second World War. Nothing will induce me to watch it, but I would find the picture of Tony Blair laying a wreath at the Cenotaph next Sunday the most odious ever transmitted by the BBC.

The poppy, of which we were once so proud, is now fatally stained by being worn by members of this Government.

In my young day Colonel Churchill had served in the trenches, Major Attlee was a veteran of Gallipoli and Captain Truman had commanded an artillery unit in the Argonne.

Unlike our present hypocritical and discredited leaders, they were entitled to honour our soldiers.

Now decent citizens should boycott next Sunday's services everywhere and refuse to buy poppies. Instead, we must stand in silence at 11am today, as we used to do in my childhood, and send a donation to the British Legion.

D Cole,

-St Leonards