Letter in today's Guardian which reflects how a lot of people must be feeling, in face of the bid by Tory leader Michael Howard to feed on what he sees as a populist wave of hatred against gypsies currently being drummed up by some of the press:

Hard choice
Tuesday March 22, 2005
The Guardian

Until a week ago our electoral choice was straightforward: a pro-war Labour MP who has toed the party line, an anti-war Lib Dem, along with a laughable Tory. For Labour members like us, the choice was simple. Vote Lib Dem.

Then Michael Howard reached into the gutter and played the Gypsy/Traveller card. The current demonising of an entire community is so shocking we are going to have to vote for a party led by a man we believe to be the slipperiest, most profoundly disliked politician to hold the office of prime minister in our lifetime. A PM whose time is up and whose representative here needs to be voted out. But sadly not by us. Not this time.
Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson
Robin Hood's Bay, N Yorks

I see that Labour MP Kevin McNamara has referred to Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act in order to make it easier to bring in tougher laws against Gypsies and Travellers as having "the whiff of the gas chambers about them". And here are two sites to remind people what lies behind that comment - "A brief Romani Holocaust Chronology", and Books on the Romani Holocaust"