Darlington FC: SINCE its opening, the Reynolds Arena has been described as magnificent, beautiful, etc. May I add one more superlative: titanic.

This giant vessel will consume money at a colossal rate, not creating a springboard for the football team, rather a millstone to anchor the team into a state of mediocrity.

This monster George Reynolds has created will have an appetite for money that will far exceed the revenues it creates. It will eventually exhaust even the formidable wealth of its creator. And when this happens the titanic Reynolds Arena will meet its iceberg and flounder like its ill-fated namesake. - Name and address supplied.

INITIALLY, George Reynolds saved Darlington FC but since then his selection of managers, treatment of staff, slagging off of his players and fans have brought the club into disrepute. Perhaps he should have thought about a casino, car boot sales, concerts, before he built the stadium. - Ken Snowdon, Middlesbrough.

HOW can anyone be surprised about the Quakers going into administration? It has been obvious that the infernal stadium was bleeding the club dry, and that every penny we earned was going to create a memorial to the greatest failure ever to be attached to our club.

It is pointless to list the many errors of judgement that have led us to this place. So I shall settle for the one, overriding mistake that the chairman never listened to the people who love the club. We knew better than him all along as to what would bring in the crowds.

All that remains is for the club to survive. How, I have no idea. At the present point in time I can see no way for us to avoid relegation, even if we avoid the winding up order. - Mark Darling, Darlington.

WAR ON TERROR

THE Sunday papers provide us with lots of news which never appears on our TV and rarely gets into the weekly press. Two items caught my eye recently, one from Afghanistan and the other from Iraq.

Apparently, a photograph appeared in the American media showing a general and actor Robin Williams posing in front of an American warplane similar to one which had just returned from a mission to try and kill Taliban fighters.

Surprise, surprise, they forgot to mention this plane and one like it had just murdered 16 Afghan children playing in a field. When the news got out the Americans expressed 'regret'.

From Iraq, a prominent journalist had just spoken to a middle class Iraqi family, well educated, the father a graduate of Essex University, and a teenage daughter who said: "The Americans treat us like dogs and I hate them as I've never hated anyone in my whole life".

Take out of these stories what you like But I tell you this, we in the West present ourselves as the freedom-loving compassionate examples to the rest of the world yet we allow our politicians to commit atrocities in our name.

Our deeply flawed system of 'democracy' allows little opportunity to change this, which is intensely depressing.

We in the West have all the weapons of mass destruction and we are the only ones using them. As terrorism goes, we could teach al Qaida a thing or two and I despise them as well. - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

SOHAM MURDERS

I WAS most impressed by Harry Mead's piece (Echo, Dec 24) on the demonising of Maxine Carr (pictured right). Anybody who tries to compare this foolish and unfortunate girl with Myra Hindley is both lacking in compassion and severely cerebrally challenged.

Hindley can be compared with creatures such as Irma Grese and Ilse Koch, who, like her, delighted in the torture of children. How on earth can she be similar to Maxine Carr who obviously loved children and was devastated by what Huntley did to the two little girls who had loved and trusted her?

The whole of Maxine Carr's life is ruined. I am sure the jury represented the views of all sensible and caring people. Maxine Carr must be allowed to build some kind of life for herself. To persecute her beyond the self torture she will always have to suffer would be cruel beyond words. - Michael T Green, Annfield Plain.

POLITICIANS

Like the letter about the Conservative Party (HAS, Dec 29), I also have wondered why we tolerate MPs who promised the earth when canvassing for our votes, who take well paid part-time jobs as advisors, consultants, board members, TV quiz shows etc. Year after year they demand and get a rise in salary, office expenses etc.

How can they represent the problems and welfare of thousands of constituents? Surely we should demand all prospective MPs to declare publicly whether they will, if elected, be full-time or part-time. - Leslie Lewis, Bishop Auckland.

SOUTH PARK

HOW many people have noticed the devastation going on in our once beautiful South Park? Good trees as well as bad are disappearing fast, making it now possible to see houses from one side to the other. The noise of traffic, once shielded, is increasing daily.

How long will it be before someone's vision of a Victorian Park takes place, not in our time, but perhaps in 20 or 30 years when new growth matures.

I agree dangerous trees should be removed, but how many have fallen in recent years? - A R Tatman, Darlington.

LIBERTY

LIKE everyone else in the country, I was sickened by the killing of a policeman in Leeds and extend my sincerest sympathy to the man's family.

But I would ask people also to remember that Britain is a democracy and democracy, if the theory of Thomas Hobbes is correct, leads to anarchy. We have seen a terrible crime apparently committed in the name of violence and thuggery, but really caused by liberty.

Human nature being what it is, liberty does not and cannot create anything nobler than violence, devastation, homicide and catastrophe. Only if men are forced into order and discipline under authority can their lives acquire any true meaning or happiness.

On the question of liberty, I often find myself agreeing with Lenin: "Liberty? what for?" Liberty is the lamp by which man finds the way to go beyond himself. Better then to accept authority and suffer no more. - Aled Jones, Bridlington.