Hear All Sides: Black & Decker

Jobs are being lost in Britain, and this is not on.

If firms do this, I suggest in future we boycott what they have for sale here.

There is more to life than shareholders' profits. Workers deserve some loyalty and fair play from employers. - FM Atkinson, Shincliffe.

IT'S a sorry day for the workforce of Black & Decker, with 950 jobs to be axed, mortgages to pay, children to feed and clothe, and bills to pay.

The demise of the industries started in the 1980s. Shildon Wagonworks closed in 1984. It was a severe blow to the community, which has never recovered.

Mining communities never recovered after the demise of the coalfields. Consett Steelworks, which dominated the town for a century, closed in 1980 and Consett also has not recovered.

Thorn Lighting cut thousands of jobs in the 1990s. In 1999 Electrolux lost hundreds of jobs. In 2000 Rothmans closed, and now this has happened to Black & Decker.

How much more can the community of Spennymoor take: it was once a thriving market town, but is now in a sad state of affairs.

Worsening economic conditions have helped send almost 33,000 UK businesses to the wall this year. So the job losses at Black & Decker will have a knock-on effect on the small businesses of Spennymoor. These communities are crying out for inward investment so they can prosper once again.

Tony Blair came to power, saying things can only get better under Labour. He should ask the people who have lost their jobs. - DT Murray, Coxhoe.

THE current jobs situation is serious. There is a migration of younger workers moving from the North-East to the affluent South East.

Before the most recent announcement at Black & Decker, we had lost over 1,000 jobs in Spennymoor during the last five years.

The 2002 statistics provided by Durham County Council show that Sedgefield Borough had 2,021 unemployed at April 2001, the highest in County Durham.

For that reason Spennymoor Liberal Democrats have started a jobs petition calling on the entire Sedgefield Borough area to be granted Enterprise Zone status. - Councillor Ben Ord, Chairman, Spennymoor Liberal Democrats.

UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS

WHY the outcry about Durham University supposedly over-favouring regional state school applicants for its law course? It should be reason to celebrate that so many people in our region want to attend university.

Why shouldn't Durham University cater for its own immediate area? It has an excellent reputation and North-East students have every right to benefit from the opportunities it offers. Not all brilliant scholars attend fee-paying schools, any more than do dunces. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

WORLD AFFAIRS

NOW we know the price for chasing the Taliban from some parts of Afghanistan.

The Taliban were ploughing up the poppy fields and the heroin output was at an all-time low. Now the heroin exports are 15 times greater and 90 per cent of it comes to the UK. So from now on thousands of young people in the UK will die from heroin addiction.

Do George Bush and Tony Blair look further than the end of their too-long noses?

Afghanistan is still a lawless country in the grip of warlords and, in reality, the whole thing has been a fiasco.

To say we are a democracy is a sick joke; 75 per cent want a ban on fox hunting and the arch procrastinator Blair seems paralysed.

However, it is now clear Mr Blair is risking his own career and he feasibly could cause serious divisions in the Labour Party.

His attitude to Europe is totally incomprehensible. Our future lies in Europe and he is now viewed with suspicion by our EC partners, who quite sensibly keep Bush and his mad ideas at arms length.

It is high time the public woke up to the Bush/Blair madcap ideas and concentrate their efforts on the area where the Israelis indulge in terrorism on a massive scale - Palestine. - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

TONY Blair says fox hunting is cruel. Would he say killing innocent Iraqi people in the same?

Saddam Hussein and other leaders in his regime should be hunted down and put on trial, rather than have an all-out war on Iraq. - N Tate, Darlington.

I AM amazed at Peter Mullen's scathing piece on the UN (Echo, Oct 1). Did he ask whether we, the people of these United Nations, are truly interested in being united? Did he offer constructive suggestions on how to strengthen the UN? Did he present his vision of heaven on earth, or was he admitting he did not have a clue either?

Bill Clinton was right in reminding us that in the very long history of humanity, an institution like the UN has been in existence for a mere 60 years and that we, individually and nationally, are all increasingly working for a united humanity, with rights, opportunities and responsibilities for everyone. - Ben Andriessen, Ramshaw.

THOSE in America and Britain who opposed war against Hitler did so because they shared Hitler's beliefs to such a degree that they provided Hitler with the materials and money to build his weapons of mass destruction, whilst funding fascists in Spain and within their own country. But ensuring that, when war did come, they would gain politically, financially and territorially from his demise.

Those who now want war with Iraq are the same people who not only provided Saddam with the materials and money to build his weapons of mass destruction, but are the ones who will benefit either politically, financially and/or territorially from his demise.

Those Socialists, Communists and other so called loony Lefties who oppose a war against Iraq, like their 1930s ancestors who wanted a war against Hitler, do so because they can see where the blind arrogant beliefs of right-wing politicians and industrialists in America and Britain would eventually lead. - HE Smith, Spennymoor.