CAPITAL OF CULTURE: THE people of Newcastle-Gateshead send our warmest congratulations to the people of Liverpool on winning the nomination and wish them the very best as they begin the work towards 2008.

The competition has had a phenomenal impact on cities across the UK. It has allowed them to profile and move forward their cultural plans, lay out their ambitions and aspirations and show how they will achieve them. It has put the national and international media spotlight on the incredible things going on in the country's great cities and has given the rest of the country the chance to see this for themselves.

It can only augur well for all of us.

We all share the ambition of creating for our young people an exciting place in which to grow up, live and work. So we look forward to working with Liverpool and the other bidding cities in years to come - to having a lot more success, acclaim - and fun - as we continue and indeed redouble our efforts to take our place on the world stage.

Good luck to you all! - Sir Ian Wrigglesworth, Chairman, Newcastle Gateshead Initiative.

SMOKING

SMOKERS are very brave. They fully understand what their addiction will lead to.

The tax on tobacco should be increased, not to show a profit but to bring the incoming money from smokers to pay for the cost they inflict on the National Health Service.

Tobacco companies should also have to foot the bill to pay compensation to non-smokers' families who are killed by passive smoking, such as Roy Castle, who never smoked but was infected by smokers. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

BBC

WHY did the BBC have to show such a sickening and insensitive TV documentary on June 1, named Correspondent, which featured coverage of the Gulf War, from an Arab perspective by the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera?

It included a short film clip of two dead English soldiers murdered by the Iraqis.

Would the BBC have shown this film clip if they had been two BBC camera crew? I doubt it.

The families of the two executed soldiers made it quite clear they did not want this particular clip shown.

You would think that in view of the slating the BBC received for their biased war reporting the head of the BBC, Greg Dyke, would have intervened.

By showing the short clip of film it only proved to viewers that those in important and influential positions at the BBC still remain as arrogant as ever. - Jack Amos, Willington.

EUROPE

YOUR comment (Echo, May 27) says a true picture of Europe may be painted if a referendum was held on the new constitution of the European Union.

For the last 60 years, up to last week, European leaders have made no secret of their aim for a federal state. Why do Messrs Blair, Hain & Co continue to try and mislead us on this?

How will enlargement to 25 states benefit us? It will, in fact, mean by 2006 many structural funds now available to UK will be diverted to support new entrants.

Until pro-Europeans get real and acknowledge the many problems further integration with Europe poses, there seems little chance of getting a true picture. - J Heslop, Darlington.

IRAQ

I DIDN'T think it would take Tony Blair long to massage his monumental ego.

His trip to Kuwait and Iraq was a classic exercise in political self-aggrandisement.

I don't suppose he went anywhere near where countless civilians were killed.

Never underestimate a politician who can say two and two makes five and that black really means white and that weapons of mass destruction were actually there when there is no sign of them.

The single most destructive conclusion to come out of this Iraq adventure is not that weapons of mass destruction have not been found but the simple fact that we cannot believe a word our PM says, not in the past, present or future. - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

CT Riley accuses the Americans of committing large scale atrocities in Iraq and further implies that they have done so as a matter of deliberate policy (as distinct from relatively rare instances of sporadic indiscipline and confusion) (HAS, May 30).

He makes these allegations without, however, providing one shred of specific evidence and I would like to invite him to do so - because frankly, they look to me like prime examples of the irresponsible and venomous anti-American garbage that is being tossed around in such large quantities at the moment. - T Kelly, Crook.

TEST MATCH

IT'S not very often that I find myself in agreement with Peter Mullen but I am in complete agreement with the sentiments which he expressed in his column (Echo, May 27) regarding the England cricket team's attitude to the Zimbabwe Test series.

Given that the team of 40-years ago boycotted the South Africans, due to racism practised there in those days, should the team of 2003 not boycott the Zimbabwean team because of the racism in Zimbabwe today? Or is white racism somehow worse than black racism? Or could it be that the modern cricketer is greedier and less principled than his predecessors? Who knows the real reasons behind this tour being allowed? All I know is that it seems not to be right. - Ken Orton, Ferryhill Station.