HOUSING: IN his letter (HAS, Sept 27) Coun Martin Jones appears to be at odds with his Liberal Democrat group leader, when he urges Sedgefield Borough Council tenants to reject the home modernisation programme demanded by the Government.

He is also misleading the tenants by stating the financial shortfall will be £62m, when it is £61m, and makes no mention of the time factor because the changeover procedure will take two years, leaving the council four years, 2006-10, to make the dwellings suitable for the 21st century.

In a letter (HAS, Sept 15) the Liberal Democrat group leader Coun Ben Ord stated that 17 wards in Sedgefield Borough suffer from social deprivation, ie poor housing. He also stated that, in the future, the borough council should concentrate on housing improvements.

This, he claims, can be financially achieved by scrapping the Community Force, thereby increasing social deprivation and the unemployment register.

As a council tenant, I find the logic of the Lib-Dems on this matter incomprehensible, so my advice to my fellow tenants is don't make a paper cross into one made of wood. Do the decent thing and have a decent home. - Thomas Conlon, Spennymoor.

IMMIGRATION

PETE Winstanley (HAS, Oct 11) is mistaken. Leicester was recently named as a place in England where we are outnumbered, as were 12 boroughs in London, such as Southwark, Southall, Brent, Hackney, etc.

Anyone in doubt of this can visit these places and see for themselves what is happening to England and the future of the English.

The people of this country are being hoodwinked, dragooned, intimidated and reviled into allowing this state of affairs to gather pace, which will happen if they do not stop voting for the political left wing.

If they continue to do this their own descendants will pay a heavy price. - P Morrison, Hartlepool.

RAILWAYS BRIDGES

I NOTE with interest your campaign on protecting the approach to road bridges over railways.

Now, there is such a bridge between Shincliffe and Bowburn, which has been well protected by a steel barrier - on one side only. So if a driver inadvertently goes off-roading near this bridge, he must choose wisely for safety.

Admittedly, the unprotected side has a slightly wider grass verge and trains do not (yet) run on the line below, but I think the improvements are strange. - F Atkinson, Shincliffe.

FOOTBALLERS

CHRIS Lloyd vividly exposes where the loyalties of the Manchester United board lay during the Ferdinand saga (Echo, Oct 11) - with the shareholders.

The mouthing off by superkid Wayne Rooney was unforgiveable, as he already has come to the conclusion that it is part of the act necessary to become a top star.

The referee should have shown him otherwise and red carded him. He would have done him a favour and football a service.

Football is well on its way to hell and the sooner it gets there the better. Then it might possibly return to what it used to be, an enjoyable game. - Douglas Punchard, Kirkbymoorside.

MUSLIMS

I AM a member of the Amhadiyya Muslim Association UK, which recently opened the largest mosque in Europe in Morden, London.

Mr Reynolds (HAS, Oct 9) asks us to speak to Saudi Arabia regarding the building of churches in that country.

We would like very much to build our own mosque in Saudi Arabia but we are also prohibited to build because they do not recognise us as Muslims although we practise the true and fundamental teachings of Islam.

Islam is a universal religion for all people, not just the Arabs. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, even invited Christian visitors to use his mosque as a place in which they could conduct their own form of worship.

Unfortunately, most of the Islamic clerics in the world today do not practise the true Islam, which engenders peace and not hatred and violence among all men.

Any person or organisation wishing to visit the mosque in Morden is most welcome to do so. - B Atkinson, Stockton.

NEW LABOUR

SO, the New Labour conference ended with singing The Red Flag.

The idea of Blairites mouthing The Red Flag is so preposterous that only the spin-riddled culture of New Labour would try it.

Tony Blair promised to "consult and listen" as never before, and almost in the same breath adamantly refused to change.

The contradiction was brazen, blatant... and successful. The ever over-faithful awarded him a seven-minute ovation.

This "business-friendly" Government, hell-bent on farming out the NHS to profit-hungry private firms and cherishing the Tory anti-trade union laws as their very own, qualifies exactly for that verse of The Red Flag which says: "It suits today the weak and base, whose minds are fixed on self and place; To cringe before the rich man's frown, and haul the sacred emblem down." - R Thompson, Castleside, Consett.