MARKETING: DOES anyone else despair at the increasing and abusive cheek of the marketing world, which, not content that we have purchased goods and being grateful for our custom, has created products that act as an ongoing means of creating fat profits for someone else?

Three examples spring to mind, other people will doubtless think of many others.

Firstly; the Battery Empire. OK, there are products which are depended upon the useful employment of batteries. But whatever became of the spring-mechanism, where it was wind-up and not cough-up simply to have a gadget function?

Secondly, the Flimsy Paper Vacuum-Bag Racket. Once sturdy cylinders and everlasting bags were essential components of the vacuum cleaner. There was a time when durability and fairness to the customer was a matter of pride and reputation to companies.

Thirdly, and this one really takes the cake, The Chip In The Ink -Print Cartridge Scam designed specifically to compel customers to buy the cartridge companies' expensive replacements. Surely this breaches some protocol in standards of fair trading? - Bethany Megan Robinson, County Durham.

FOXHUNTING

I GET extremely put out when the antis state that 90 per cent of the public are against foxhunting.

Personally, I don't know anyone who has been asked. It is yet another English tradition that these extremists wish to abolish, while, at the same time, insisting we honour the traditions of other cultures.

With much more important issues at stake, these people and the MPs they bully into submission are a monumental bore.

I wonder if they would rush as eagerly to the defence of the many rats that are killed by farmers. Shooting foxes is only humane if the aim is accurate, and poisoning is a slow, cruel death. - Shelagh Harnby, Stockton.

AGEISM

PROPOSALS that discrimination because of age is to be outlawed are to be welcomed.

Having achieved the ripe old age of 60 last year, I have been the victim of sexism - in that if I had been a woman, I would by now be in receipt of state retirement pension.

If legislation is passed outlawing ageism then I will also suffer an additional financial injustice by being denied my state retirement pension due to my age, or lack of it.

There must be, in this litigious age, someone to blame, and therefore someone I can sue for damages. - Chris Greenwell, Aycliffe Village.

EUROPE

ONCE again Robin Ashby claims that Britain need have no fear of European law overriding ours. He must have missed hearing the Law Lord in the Steven Thoburn case state that European law has precedence over British law made at Westminster.

The British nation has been lied to, cheated and conned ever since Edward Heath took us into the Common Market, a trading organisation. - Raymond M Kelly, Chester-le-Street.

THE case for withdrawal from the European Union gets even stronger by the day.

I challenge any reader to name any aspect of our daily lives that the EU does not meddle in or even have absolute control over - always to our detriment.

For the last 30 years, governments of both complexions have allowed a state of affairs to be brought about whereby our elected government is powerless to act against EU directives, regulations and diktat.

The prime example of how a nation can allow itself to become paralysed and forced to act against the interests of its own people is, of course, the fishing industry. Fishing became a common issue of the EEC of 1972 when Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Rome and made Britain a member of the Common Market. The progressive destruction of our fishing industry is one of the many disastrous consequences of this initial act of treachery.

There is even now in certain areas of the press a stubborn refusal to accept that the fishing industry of the UK would not be in crisis and thousands of livelihoods would not already have been destroyed and thousands more still threatened were it not for our continued membership of this corrupt and unaccountable organisation.

With the UK fishing industry virtually decimated and the EU still pumping out endless garbage on the need to conserve fish stocks, it is quite reasonable to ask why the Spanish fishing fleet has now been granted unlimited access to both the North and Irish seas' stocks of species we are told are under threat.

Not only must Britain regain control of its territorial waters by a total withdrawal from the EU but politicians responsible for these acts should face trial accordingly. - Dave Pascoe, Press Secretary, UK Independence Party, Hartlepool Branch.

IRAQ

ALTHOUGH I agree with some parts of the letter with my name to it (HAS, July 1), I did not write this letter. I agree our troops were murdered and I also agree people need to be told the truth about events in Iraq.

I think it is not feasible for troops to be brought out yet. Then the deaths would have been in vain.

The only other point is a lot more could be done to make life easier for our troops over there; more phone calls home and a quicker postal service to troops.

My only hope is all our troops return safe and well and as soon as possible. - B Storey, Trimdon Village.