Tim Linnell claims the proposed changes to school admissions remove choice from one group of parents to benefit another.

He argues this doesn't offer greater equality unless we are to agree with Orwell's deliberate perversion that "some are more equal than others". But this itself is a classic example of Orwellian double-think.

Parents in the north of the city can currently express two or three meaningful preferences when applying for secondary school and be confident of getting any one of them.

Parents in east Brighton get no meaningful choice whatsoever. To ask that those lucky parents relinquish some (not all) of that choice so kids in east Brighton get some (though still less) choice is made to sound like east Brighton parents want to be "more equal than others".

This is rubbish - we just want to send our kids to a good local school. We're not asking for a choice of three, we don't seek to take all of the choice away from parents in the north, and we don't much mind which of the most local schools we get to send our kids to.

The Working Party has sensibly proposed that Dorothy Stringer be the school measured from The Level because of its long-standing links with east Brighton primary schools and because its large size enables it to accommodate children from a wide geographical area.

But I'm sure parents in east Brighton will happily "make do" with Varndean or Longhill as our other nearest schools if that's what was offered.

We simply want to know our children will stand a realistic chance of getting into one of these schools. That's not much to ask, is it?

-Jane Allen, Brighton