ROTHMANS: WHAT is it about the people of the North-East?

Year after year we are subjected to job losses as our manufacturing base is eroded due to the lack of care and understanding of politicians, who for the most part have no concept of how wealth is created.

How come we have so many Labour politicians and councillors who seem to get into power as of right, not by virtue of their ability to promote our area and to fight for our economic well-being?

I think it is really time, especially for our local MPs, to start earning the vast salaries and benefits we the taxpayers pay them. If their pay was based on productivity perhaps it would be a different story.

Tony Blair should remember who sends him to Parliament. It is the people of the North-East and he is failing us. - Colin Douglas, Darlington.

HEALTH SERVICE

WE read that the health service can't cope with the load due to teenagers with sexually transmitted diseases.

Well, after all we do encourage them with sex education that includes free condoms and zero reference to abstinence and self-control, apart from every encouragement in magazines and other media.

A very senior gynaecologist in America, once a proponent of sexual freedom, is now campaigning on total abstinence before marriage. She has witnessed first hand the devastated lives that will soon be the norm here.

A loving God 4,000 years ago told his children that sex outside of marriage was the road to disaster. The only safe sex is Bible sex. - W Mawston, Rushyford.

I NOTE the Conservative Party has proposed a radical process to halt the decline of the health service.

Based on personal choice it gives the patient a 'passport' to obtain services from both the public and private sector.

And it also seeks to remove politicians and political practices from the health service process, no mean feat in itself.

The passport will mean continued free treatment for everyone at the NHS hospital of their choice and bring affordable treatment in voluntary and private hospitals within reach of many not just a few.

Nobody will be compelled to go outside the NHS and the proposals objective will mean fairer healthcare, better healthcare and more healthcare.

Any proposal from whatever source should be carefully considered as the grand plans over the last several years have failed to achieve. - Charles Johnson, Darlington.

POLITICS

LAST week I was watching Prime Minister's Question Time and I have never seen such an unruly rabble in all my life.

Anyone would think, if they were just listening and not watching what was going on, that what was happening was a kids' garden party. If the same conduct had taken place at a shop floor union meeting the people responsible would have been reported to the local district committee for action to be taken against them.

It's frightening to think that these rabbles, of all persuasions, are allowed to make all the decisions that affect the public's everyday lives.

They are all shouting about Tony Blair changing the constitution. What constitution? The British people don't have one. We are not allowed one. If we had one it would radically alter the way politicians run this country.

Not having a Bill of Rights is what makes all MPs afraid of the European Union.

If Britain embraced the EU fully they would have to subscribe to the Union's Bill of Rights and all unelected people would be removed from the positions they now hold through the patronage of whoever is Prime Minister. - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

THE reaction to the latest government re-shuffle reveals the howls of anguish our political and legal masters can produce when their cosy little club is subject to the drastic changes we ordinary mortals have, for years, had to take for granted in work places up and down this country.

They have consigned swathes of manufacturing industry into decline by the stroke of a pen or by neglect but they don't like it when it comes to their door.

How can one trust any of them, particularly as they are now plugging regional government as a great idea? - Chris Greenwell, Aycliffe Village.

EURO

PETER Troy (Echo, May 30) asks for facts in any debate about the euro. With usual optimism we are told that the British economy has been growing steadily for more than a decade and that trade with the eurozone countries is only 47 per cent.

There was no urgent need to think of adopting the euro.

Britain in Europe and the European Movement consistently tell us that Britain does more than half of her trade with the eurozone countries.

As for the health of the British, European and world market, alarm bells started to ring at the beginning of June on the business pages of our leading newspapers. Industry employed just over 3.5 million in April, 100,000 fewer than a year earlier.

Perhaps these trends in the British economy should be given more weight in the next discussion about the euro. - E Whittaker, Richmond.