12/11/03

Another gravy train for our washed-up MPs and local councillors and their quango friends to fleece tax payers of more money.

Now we have Tony Blair telling the people that there will be no referendum on Europe or the pound. I think that he will be in for a great shock if he thinks that his dictatorial attitude will be allowed to happen in our so-called free country.

So people, let us demand that he will not be allowed to destroy our country once and for all and trust that he and his New Labour are kicked out at the next election. - F Wealand, Darlington.

ECONOMY

I DON'T profess to being a prophet but, as an ex-miner, even I can see that in the years to come there will be no future for our great grandchildren in this country.

I am 73 and retired now and have the time on my hands to watch all of those TV shows that are slowly taking all of the affluent Brits away to warmer and cheaper places like Spain, France, Africa and so on.

If the trend keeps going for the next 50 years or so, the money will have all been taken out of the country.

There will be no jobs as they will be done in India or other cheap labour countries and poverty and starvation will return to our shores similar to the 1920s.

When poverty comes to the door, love and race relations will go out of the window.

I won't be here, thank God, but I can see another example of the Bosnian-Serb situation in this land of ours.

The only people left in our country will be all of the thousands of immigrants who arrived with nothing, plus all the poor people of Britain already striving to live now. Can't the powers that be see this situation that must surely come?

I've been a working man all my life and a Labour voter, but if the party in charge can't handle this forthcoming situation maybe they should move over. - F Wallis, Barnard Castle.

HEALTH SERVICE

THE whole argument about whether or not Hartlepool Hospital should close (Echo, Nov 4) should never have arisen.

The Prime Minister makes much of his claims of pouring millions of pounds into the NHS, giving us a better service. This should mean expanding and improving hospitals, not closing them down.

Closing any hospital is a retrograde step. Why should there be only two hospitals in the area instead of three? If that is what the health bosses say in their plans to shake up the service, they are the ones who need shaking up. Making people travel a greater distance for treatment rather than having their own local hospital is not what most people want. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

CRICKET

LAST weekend, like many other cricket followers, I was trying to follow the progress of the England v Bangladesh test match.

However, in much of the media any coverage was swamped by the reports of football and its many blemishes, athletics and the drug cheats and, of course, the Rugby World Cup. - Martin Birtle, Billingham

ASYLUM SEEKERS

I AM wondering how Christopher Wardell (Has, Nov 8) can take such a simplistic and unsympathetic view of asylum seekers.

He asks that these individuals be sent back to their "homelands" obviously not realising that to do so would mean returning these people to dangerous environments, rife with human rights violations.

Mr Wardell rightly believes that pensioners should be cared for and the homeless fed, yet considers it a "disgrace" that the British government attempts to protect refugees. These opinions are obviously inconsistent and ill considered.

I would like to add that our country hosts less than one per cent of the world's asylum seekers. Personally I consider it a "disgrace" that we do not do more to help this vulnerable group of people. - Ceridwen Bolton, Langley Park.

CHRISTOPHER Wardell (HAS, Nov 8) suggests that British culture is about to be destroyed. I am disappointed that so many people seem to have such little confidence in their own culture.

Since the beginning of our history, our culture and language have been enriched and enhanced through contact with other cultures. We have adapted and assimilated new ideas on everything from music to politics and, as a result, over time our culture has developed and grown stronger.

Culture and language are not museum pieces fixed in time and Christopher Wardell is quite mistaken if he believes that getting rid of all "non-British" people would protect our culture. Instead it would become isolated, insular and moribund.

I welcome new people coming into our communities. Perhaps the arrival of newcomers who place great value on their own culture will make us look more closely at how we contribute to our own communities and make us question how we support our own culture. - Jill McManus, Newcastle.

POLITICS

I FOUND the editorial (Echo, Nov 8) "independent" all right - of balance and fairness.

It praises the Tories for choosing a leader in an election that no one wanted to stand in except himself. His qualifications are that he is not Iain Duncan Smith and his age means he can only contest one general election. He was always loyal to the extremism of Margaret Thatcher. Indeed, to every Tory leader who picked him as a reliable "yes-man".

It slags off Gordon Brown despite admitting he is the most successful Chancellor of the last century. Labour's many successes are rooted in his skilful management of the economy. He is the second most important person in government and should have a place on Labour's NEC. John Prescott should retire as Deputy Leader to make space for him.

Increasingly, party members and voters do see Tony as tainted by his commitment to war in Iraq. It would be tragic if he was to be remembered, not for his enormous achievements, but for supporting the Anglo-American Alliance into a worsening guerrilla war.

Whether Gordon or Tony would best lead Labour into the next election is an abstract question, fascinating for journalists, as no leadership vacancy exists, at present. - Stuart Hill, Darlington.