10/12/03

The argument simply revolves, not about whether killing in order to redress a wrong is right, but who should exercise that right.

Many murderers also think they are right. Violence, as is clearly seen in the US, simply begets violence. We have no moral right to take life.

It is no accident that, as we have gradually left repression behind, every country in Western Europe and a very large number in the rest of the world, have abolished the death penalty and that each time the issue was debated in the Commons, since the Second World War, the majority against the death penalty increased. The UN Declaration of Human Rights firmly opposes capital punishment.

Taking life in this way demeans those who take it and it is comforting to know that our legislators see it as something that was a blot on society when used in the past and that it will, most hopefully, never return. - Jack Stevens, Durham City.

EDUCATION

I AGREE with M Armstrong (HAS, Nov 26). On December 5, David Milliband, Minister of State for School Standards, congratulated North Blunts Primary School for being in the top 100 primary schools in the country for improvement.

Analysis of the DFES Value Added Scores shows North Blunts as the fourth most improved primary school in Durham LEA and 16th top primary school in the whole North-East region.

Why has Durham County Council proposed the closure of the best improving primary school in Peterlee?

It blames falling rolls. Every primary school in Peterlee has greater falling rolls than North Blunts. If rebuilt as planned, using private funding from Modus, on the proposed new site, with no expense to ratepayers or the county, North Blunts would have no spare places.

The real reason for the proposed closure of this excellent school is the money that the council would receive for the sale of two prime sites of land - the existing North Blunts site and the proposed new site.

The council is literally selling the land from under the school and using that money to rebuild another school in Peterlee, a school whose governing body made the initial proposal for North Blunts closure. - David Bell, Billingham.

TONY BLAIR

HOW generous of Sir Cliff Richard to offer Tony Blair a freebie holiday to rest from stress (Echo, Dec 8).

It is a luxury which is unhappily not available to those now dead and those yet to die as a result of his invasion of Iraq, and unaffordable by those working class people who will be hard pressed to put their kids through further education without them having to incur debt and thus stress of their own.

Had he seen his job as representing the people who elected him then he would not have gone to war and had the taxpayers' money he has spent and will yet spend on the war been used to fund the education of poorer people, then his assertions of education, education, education would have reality instead of rhetoric.

However, he sees himself as a leader who knows what is best for us even if the majority of us disagree.

He has therefore only himself to blame for his problems and I only hope that retribution at the ballot box will be meted out to him by those whom he should have listened to - precisely those people who voted Labour in. - Chris Greenwell, Aycliffe.

Teesside AIRPORT

AT Burton-on-Trent last Sunday, two people sitting behind us asked if Hartlepool was on the east or west coast.

When we mentioned Darlington; they didn't know where that was either, so calling Teesside Airport after a local town seems pointless, not only for domestic travellers but particularly for people from overseas.

East Midlands Airport serves an area similar to ours (from say Durham to York) so why not go for a geographical definition that would identify it worldwide and call it North East Regional Airport? If Newcastle were to object to this name, they could always change theirs to Durham/Tyne Valley. - Maurice Heslop, Billingham.

WAR ON TERROR

PETE Winstanley (HAS, Dec 8) writes about the war on terror and the war against Iraq with some naivety.

He asserts that the War on Terror has only increased the number of terrorist attacks. This is not so. The US suffered many attacks on its embassies and citizens long before September 11.

He also claims that a war against Islam is being waged. Not so, on the part of the West. Saddam was a secular leader who put to death many Muslims. Al Qaida supporters, however, who distort Islam for their own twisted aims, have bombed Turkey and Bali in an attempt to scare and bully moderate Muslim governments.

Britain and America have always been and will always be terrorist targets because we value and love freedom, and are prepared to stand up for those principals.

The mentality that says we must retreat from that fight in order to avoid being targets is flawed.

The best thing we can do is to remove the means of attack and that means taking the fight to terrorists and those who support them. It also means spreading democracy across the world so that everybody might be able to live in a free society.

I, for one, am proud to be a citizen of a country that, along with the United States, does not shy away from our obligations and duties across the globe. It's a shame many other liberal democracies won't take a similar stance. - William Wearmouth, Eastgate.

STONE AGE DIET

NOT all Stone Age people had healthy diets we should emulate (Echo, Dec 6). Just take the case of nasty Neanderthal Man.

The Neanderthals were almost certainly cannibals. Their bones have been found mixed with left-over food, scorched by fire as if they were cooked and smashed to bits for the "tasty" marrow inside. The brutality is breathtaking.

Had Neanderthals not died out as a race, it would be Kentucky fried human and Homo tikka masala now.

As for a quick snack - the Neanderthal idea of this was slitting open an animal's stomach and eating the meal that the beast had swallowed just before it got topped.

Archaeologists should concentrate their efforts on the truth about Neanderthals, and not asserting they were kind and thoughtful. - Aled Jones, Bridlington.