Hear All Sides: MODERN BRITAIN

Fact, Mr Jones: You are more likely to be struck and killed by a meteorite than you are to win the National Lottery jackpot.

Fact Mr Jones: You are more likely to die by choking on a sandwich than you are to win one of the bigger National Lottery prizes.

Does this mean we should beware of shooting stars and sandwich vendors?

Mr Jones needs a sense of perspective. The odds of winning the Lottery or being killed by violent crime are both very, very high and shouldn't keep you awake at night. If he wants to scaremonger then he should do it realistically. - Matt Stasiak, Darlington.

DURHAM CITY COUNCIL

YET again the Labour Group on Durham City Council shows it is unfit to be in office with another allegation of racist behaviour (Echo, 24 June). So how does it deal with it? Through the Labour Party.

The issue should be referred to the council's Standards Committee under its independent chairman to take action if necessary. Can anyone doubt that the Labour councillors would use that route if there were allegations against an opposition councillor?

Let's have the facts. The people of Durham City deserve to know the truth. - County Councillor Nigel Martin, Neville's Cross, Durham.

ROAD SCHEME

THE A1 is to be rebuilt as a three-lane motorway through North Yorkshire.

This is welcomed in your editorial comment (Echo, June 25) and by each of the four pressure groups quoted in your front page lead article.

Alternative headlines to the story could be "More Traffic for Region" or "More Pollution for Region". Could the reason for not using these headlines be that it is more difficult to write an article that is as unquestioningly supportive of them? - Stephen Hammond, Leeds.

REGIONAL FUNDING

JIM Tague's conspiracy theory (HAS, June 27) about the Barnett Formula would not be out of place on the X-Files.

His honest delusion is that Labour benefits, electorally, from continuing the Barnett Formula. If so, why didn't the Tories scrap it in their 18 years of power? There are clearly vastly more Labour Party members, voters and MPs in England and Wales than there are in Scotland.

I hope that people of all parties will support extra funding being based on current needs, rather than any dated formula, however useful it may have been, in the past to both Tory and Labour governments. - Stuart Hill, Darlington.

EUROPE

IT does people a disservice to suggest that people may reject the euro 'principally because the Queen's picture would go west from British money if the euro were introduced'.

People are far more knowledgable that that. They realise that inflation is low and the economy is strong because we are not in the eurozone and are able to set our own interest rates, and keep control of our economy.

The disadvantages of joining the euro far outweigh the benefits.

In Britain, we can have the best of both worlds. We can use the euro on holiday and sometimes on our own high street, but we can also keep control of our economy.

What we should be talking about is not the look of our currency but the effect that replacing the pound would have on the British economy and on British jobs. Our economy is doing far better than the eurozone's. We have half the rate of unemployment, the lowest inflation in the EU and the fastest growth of any major world economy. This is a reflection that we have kept control of our economy - over interest rates and taxation - by keeping the pound. - Ron Mitten, Council Member, Business for Sterling North-East.

AMONG the anti-euro and the anti-European Union letters so often found in your paper, I have noticed some in which the letter writer appears to want to add weight to his views by saying that he and others fought for this country during the last world war.

Far from making anyone hostile to the European Union (and the euro), this experience ought to have made them ardent supporters of a united, friendly, co-operative, peace-loving and forward-looking institution. Winston Churchill, who had carried the tremendous burden of leadership during the war, spoke thus at the Congress of Europe in May 1948: "Europe can only be united by the heart-felt wish and vehement expressions of the great majority of all the peoples in all the freedom-loving countries, no matter where they dwell or how they vote."

Later he said: "And why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent and why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings in shaping the destinies of men?"

Less than a year and a half after the end of the war, Churchill said in a speech in Zurich: "We must now build a kind of United States of Europe."

Churchill's vision was not shared by the other heads of state and a much more modest group of European nation states has been formed in the shape of the EU.

It is something to treasure, not to denigrate. After six years of devastating all-out war, it was essential to take measures against it ever happening again. - E Whittaker, Richmond.