TAXATION: IN reply to Geoffrey Bulmer (HAS, June 30) and Peter Hain, higher taxation would solve nothing.

We already pay far too much in tax as it is and where does the bulk of it go? Into recruiting more and better doctors, nurses, teachers, cleaners etc?

No. It goes into subsidising the opulent lifestyles of a vast army of under-stretched people in worthless jobs. I begrudge what I already pay to keep that lot in the comfort to which they are accustomed.

As for the ongoing disaster we call our public services, chucking more money at them is not the answer.

The answer is to cut out all the dead wood - ie about 90 per cent of them - among managers and consultants.

Basically, the genuine people in this country, the underpaid and under-appreciated ones who do the real work, are suffocating beneath a parasitic horde of senior professionals and officials.

That's where the rot is. See to that before you spend another penny. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

ROYAL PROTECTION

WITH regard to the prankster who gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party. Why do the Royal Family not pay for their own protection?

The police force is stretched to begin with without having to deploy numbers of officers to guard the Royals. - D Tuff, Darlington.

ROTHMANS

NO doubt those bureaucrats in Brussels are clapping their hands in delight at the closure of Rothmans cigarette factory.

It was their decision to ban production of heavy tar cigarettes at the factory that was a contributory factor in the plant's closure.

Anyone with half a brain should have foreseen that if BAT could not produce these cigarettes at Darlington then it would transfer manufacture to a country outside the clutches of the EU.

Unfortunately, the Brussels bureaucrats are not that bright and BAT has done exactly that.

The result is the decimation of another British industry by a decision made in Brussels over which we had no control.

The EU is hugely corrupt, vastly inefficient and hopelessly over-bureaucratic.

It is time that Britain retook control over its own affairs and kicked the EU into touch. - K Peacock, Darlington.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

Thank heaven for Bernard Heaven (HAS, June 26). His letter should be printed and put through every letterbox in the North-East. - R Wright, Sedgefield.

MINERS' GALA

LAST year I can remember Michael Foot, the ex-leader of the Labour Party, was going to personally write to Tony Blair to go to the Durham Miners' Gala.

I say not to bother. He has had plenty of invitations to go and he has ignored them.

We can manage without him. We all know what he thinks of the miners.

Where was he during the miners' strike? I never saw him standing shoulder to shoulder with Arthur Scargill but he wants to remember where he gets his votes from. The majority of votes come from people connected to the mining industry one way or another. - D Brown, Fishburn.

NEW LABOUR

MAY I suggest, now that Alan Milburn has deserted the ship of New Labour, that the Captain Tony Blair and his men should scuttle the ship and let a new crew steer our country to freedom before it is too late, free from Europe altogether.

Mr Blair's crew have done untold damage that will take years to put right but it has to be done.

Our first job is to clear our the illegal asylum seekers from our country and get rid of John Prescott's idea of regional assembly. Millions of pounds will be wasted in out-of-work MPs getting on the gravy train if ever this is foisted on our people.

Hurry up Mr Blair and pack in. You do not like our country or the monarchy or the Union Jack or any traditions of our country which have stood for centuries.

Go and join Neil Kinnock's gravy train for Brussels with the rest of the dosh workers and take your cabinet with you. - FG Wealands, Darlington.

ROYAL FAMILY

WITH Prince William celebrating his 21st birthday I couldn't help casting my mind back to the tragic life of Mary Queen of Scots.

Kept prisoner by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth for 19 years before being executed in 1587, she couldn't have known her son James would be king of Scotland and England at the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

Mary, some say, was the victim of a plot by Elizabeth's ministers.

Mary was destroyed by her cousin and some would say Princess Diana was destroyed by the Windsors, her relatives by marriage.

Like Mary Queen of Scots, Diana's son will be king.

But when, that is the question. Now, if the Queen were to abdicate this year and Charles refused the throne because of public hostility to Camilla (shades of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson) then William would be king exactly 400 years after James became James I of Great Britain. 1603 to 2003, interesting, isn't it. - H Pender, Darlington.