10/05/03

It exemplifies the talents and hard work of our community. The company works at the cutting edge of manufacturing technology. It has an extensive and comprehensive training programme. It is the kind of company the North-East needs and desires.

The bitter and sneering letters about Carlos Ghosh and his insistence that the euro is good for Nissan do a massive disservice to our region and our nation.

This attitude is not patriotic. It is little Englanders and xenophobes who have no regard for the economic well-being of their fellow men who write.

They are isolationists who live in a dream world of the Raj and foreign johnnies. I do not see why a company which puts bread into the mouths of so many families in our region and which pays millions in taxes to the nation should be so coarsely derided.

Where were the British entrepreneurs and capitalists when the North-East needed them?

Shipbuilding on the Tyne, don't forget, was resurrected by a Dutchman.

If Britain followed the views of your tiny but vociferous group of correspondents, we would have long dole queues and little in our larders. It is wrong that Nissan workers must work extra hard to put money into the pockets of international bankers and money-changers. It is a hard truth but one we need to get used to - you have your giro in pounds sterling or your pay cheque in euros. - Councillor Colin R Anderson, Sunderland City Council.

EUROPE

Were I doing business with those European countries I would prize the obvious advantages of the single currency right the way from Britain to the far side of Europe.

And tourists shopping all over Europe wouldn't need to mentally calculate different currency's values.

Years ago Winston Churchill, himself a man renowned for his farsightedness, foresaw "a united states of Europe". Well, isn't this the only way forward? Of course it jolly well is. - Alfred H Lister, Guisborough.

FOR those hopelessly baffled by the debate over the euro with its corollary of whether we should surrender yet more of our sovereignty to Brussels, the recent war should have made the realities of our position clear, and they have nothing to do with economics.

Basically, when the chips are down, Europe was tried and found wanting. Across the EU the main players demonstrated beyond any possibility of misunderstanding that their priorities and interests differ fundamentally from our own.

And indeed the unfathomable economic complexities have been a huge red herring. Like the systematic and irreparable destruction of our fishing industry and the aiding and abetting of the very worst elements in our agricultural policy.

I call upon politicians to recognise that our entry into the Common Market 30 years ago was one of the biggest mistakes in our history, and that our future lies not in Europe but in the wider English-speaking world of America, Australia and those other countries who have never failed us in our hour of need. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

WE are in danger of losing the vision of the founders of the European Union that is as valid today as it was over 50 years ago.

They saw that it was nationalistic institutions that were the cause of devastating wars and endeavoured to build co-operative inter-governmental institutions in order to bring about peace and prosperity. It was stated that the timescale did not matter as long as the goals were achieved.

It is easy to become diverted through loyalty to an institution that has largely served its purpose when the need is to establish machinery to deal with new common problems that all countries are facing.

The cry that co-operative structures, which deal with common problems, takes away independence from the UK misses the point that independent action almost always results in a level of conflict that reduces the well being of the population.

So far we have enjoyed most of the benefits of being in the EU but seem reluctant to take the next step, the adoption of the euro. Failure to do so would mean that we would not share fully in the overall benefits that adoption is bringing to euro members and would leave us out of an important decision-making area.

Those who take polarised views for or against adoption are mistaken. There are one-off costs associated with joining and there are changes that the Government would have to make, but even in the worse case scenario the benefits outweigh the costs.

The UK needs to play the fullest part in all the work of the EU and can only do so by adopting the euro and being at the centre of the decision-making. - Bill Morehead, Darlington.

HEALTH REFORM

THERE is much written in the news lately about our National Health Service, with Tony Blair and Alan Milburn prepared to resign over the issue of changing our hospitals into foundation trusts.

But surely the issue should be the care and consideration of the people it was designed to help.

I was diagnosed almost two years ago as in urgent need of two hip replacement operations but I am still waiting for the second one.

I, and many thousands like me, really don't care who runs our hospitals as long as we don't have to have this unnecessary suffering in both pain and loss of dignity.

When you are looking at the world from a wheelchair, politics is a very poor view. - Edith Marley, Darlington.