Ms Jackson said: "People with similar experiences have had much worse results. There was evidence that toughened glasses would not cost more than ordinary ones and were likely to last longer.Mr Straw's announcement was supported by Glenda Jackson, whose son, Daniel Hodges, was blinded in one eye in an unprovoked attack with a beer glass in a south London pub. One source said the scheme would give more choice to those who wanted to study modern languages or, if there were a demand, Latin or Greek.Labour's initiative on drink-related crime was unveiled by the shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, who said there should be greater use of toughened glasses in pubs and clubs. He will outline plans for improvements in teacher training, streaming, the closure of schools performing poorly and new powers to suspend local education authorities which are not presiding over rising standards.He will also promise that 300 new specialist schools, budgeted for by the Conservatives, would be required to make their facilities available to all schools in the area. Jack Straw, the party's home affairs spokesman, promised to crack down on drink-related crime by calling for more pub exclusion orders, by-laws to ban public drinking in local trouble spots - and new beer glasses.Labour's high command has ruled against shifts of policy of the type which caused last week's turbulence.This week the Labour leader, Tony Blair, will highlight existing pledges on education, including a plan to use money for specialist schools to keep alive language and classics teaching in the inner cities. A Gallup poll in the Sunday Telegraph recorded Labour on 49, the Tories on 33 and the Lib-Dems on 12. The Opposition has spent days trying to reassure the voters over economic competence, but yesterday drew a line under last week's rows over privatisation by switching the focus of the campaign to social issues.

The Tories are unchanged at 28 per cent but the Liberal Democrats recorded a big rise to 17 per cent - five up from last week. An ICM poll in the Observer put Labour on 48, the Tories on 32 and the Lib-Dems on 15. An NOP survey in today's Sunday Times shows Labour's support falling four points, from 52 per cent to 48. Labour yesterday switched tactics, steering attention away from the economy and towards crime, education and health as opinion polls showed a small drop in the party's big lead over the Conservatives. The majority of its work is for the US government but it has also worked with Shorts of Belfast on missiles for Apache attack helicopters and supplies aircraft to Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.Previous research by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade showed that around 90 churches and parishes, and a number of other Christian organisations, held millions of pounds worth of shares in companies making arms or defence equipment.. "To have something as blatant as this when the public is moving against the arms trade is insensitive to say the least."Lockheed Martin is the world's largest military supplier.

It's all very well for St Paul's to say that this particular subsidiary is not involved in the Third World, but Lockheed Martin is a giant and sells to the Middle East, a place of enormous tensions."The Rev Sidney Hinkes, chairman of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, said he is writing to the Dean. It is nothing to do with us if firms like this provoke war; that is up to them, although as far as I know they do not. There is a difference between supplying revolutionary governments and nations that need to defend themselves."The Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which two years ago revealed extensive investments by the Church in arms companies, described the sponsorship as "an absolute disgrace". "Lockheed Martin Tactical Systems are not selling arms to the Third World, after all," he said. "Ultimately we had no difficulty with accepting the sponsorship because we need it and we are delighted to get it."The Reverend Canon John Halliburton, the senior cathedral clergyman who chaired the concert committee, said he did not recall any discussion But, he said, "there have been arms since the bow and arrow We regret war but we are not a pacifist cathedral.

"St Paul's was soliciting sponsorship and we had discussions with them We'll use it as a corporate hospitality event," he said. "It is part of 'corporate citizenship' to fund such an event."The concert on 8 July is part of a series of musical events to mark the tercentenary of the cathedral, built by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London in 1666.Brigadier Robert Acworth, the registrar of St Paul's, said cathedral staff had discussed the sponsorship, but did not find it unethical. "It is deeply disturbing when a major Christian institution lends itself to defence and the arms business."The deal to provide pounds 15,000 for a concert of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, to be held as part of St Paul's tercentenary celebrations, was struck by Lockheed Martin Tactical Systems, a Portsmouth-based subsidiary, which is managing a helicopter project for the Royal Navy.Its American chief executive Galen Ho confirmed that the concert would be used to entertain other defence contractors such as British Aerospace, GEC and Racal. The agreement with Lockheed Martin, which produces stealth bombers, Trident submarines and armour-piercing explosive darts, has shocked mem- bers of the Church of England. Canon Paul Oestreicher, author of The Church and the Bomb and a former chairman of Amnesty International, described it as "appalling". And she urges "other people, particularly women, to be positive.