STORM PICTURE

TONY Bartholomew's picture (Echo, Feb 25) of waves crashing over Scarborough's Marine Drive was excellent and one of the best I have ever seen. Well done! - Geoffrey Gregg, Ferryhill.

COUNCIL FINANCES

I VOTED against an elected mayor for Durham, mainly on cost. Should I have worried?

Checking back, my council tax from 1996-7 to 2001-2 rose by 48 per cent. In actual terms, this was just over £300. That increase represented a year-on-year increase of about eight per cent (well above the inflation rate) and, at that figure, it would take another four years to have doubled. An increase of 100 per cent in nine years.

Now, we are facing a reported 17 per cent increase, which will bring the increase since 1996-7 to 73 per cent, and will only require a 15 per cent rise next year and the tax will have doubled in just seven years.

Maybe the people who quibble about the "perks" given to pensioners may like to think again. Each year, the increase in pensions has more than been swallowed up by the council tax, resulting in a constant erosion of their standard of living. - D Smith, Durham.

I WONDER if it's time for Cleveland and Hartlepool residents to make a stand against the never-ending rises in council taxes.

Perhaps, if we all cancelled our direct debits until they got their act in order - i.e. sorting out senior council officers and getting in people capable of doing a proper job - it may make them act.

As for the increase in tax for the "Keystone Cops" - not until they clear out some of the dead wood at the top.

This brings me to the police authority. The infamous toothless chickens. Let's be rid of them.

I notice the local MPs making a noise about missing money from the TDC. They should pull their heads in, as compared with the waste of money on the Dome, it's a drop in the ocean.

If it hadn't been for the TDC, Hartlepool would still be in the dark ages. - RS Lincoln, Greatham, Hartlepool.

THE latest round of council tax settlements are a sad and worrying reminder of what Labour always achieve when in Government, whether that be local or national - and that is, of course, higher taxes (for example the 14.8 per cent increase in County Durham).

What is even more terrifying is the prospect of more of these Labour politicians furnishing themselves with new offices, an entourage of staff, a parliamentary chamber and the odd limousine or two, if they ever get their dream of a regional assembly.

The White Paper on regional government is expected to be published in the next few weeks and will probably set out a timetable for a referendum on the question of an assembly for the North-East.

I would urge people in the North-East to think very carefully before endorsing any notion of another tier of government in the region. Of course, there are economic and social challenges that need to be addressed here in the North-East, but unless we want to see this latest trend of rocketing taxes continue, I suggest we think creatively about ways of reforming local government structures, and that we do this before signing a blank cheque for Labour grandees in the region.

My experience is that people work hard for their money here in the North-East. My guess is that they don't want it to be wasted supporting another Labour pipe dream. - Martin Callanan MEP, North-East Conservatives.

STEPHEN BYERS

YOUR comment suggesting that Stephen Byers has to go as Transport Secretary (Echo, Feb 25) may sway the Prime Minister, but I hope not.

Two squabbling "spin doctors" have got the push and so what? Many will feel they were lucky not to have been sacked earlier. However, both are political journalists and will have plenty of job offers. The mass-media really seems to be obsessed with its own profession and relative trivia, rather than the big issues.

I have two proper tests for Stephen Byers's survival. Firstly, whether he can obtain increased resources for transport within the forthcoming government spending review. Secondly, whether he can achieve the successful reorganisation of the railways, so safety and reliability replace the profit motive so beloved by the Tories.

No minister can solve the inherited problems of many years in months, and that is all he has had since moving from Trade and Industry last year. We should be tough on politicians who fail to deliver, and Stephen Byers has said so himself.

When rail commuters go to the polls in the next election, they will deliver their own verdict on Stephen Byers and the Labour Government. Until then I want him to stay on track and on time! - Stuart Hill, Darlington.

WAR ON TERRORISM

IT seems that the unholy mess in Afghanistan is no longer newsworthy, so the Stephen Byers saga is taking its place.

The US considers the death of a journalist, sad as that is, far more important than the thousands of innocent civilians murdered by the US bombing.

Stephen Byers was handed a poisoned chalice when he became responsible for transport. The Tories left him a nightmare of around 20 companies privatised to pay off those who supported them.

Anyone who has worked in an office environment knows that jealousy and incompatibility abound, and now that the two main combatants are gone, maybe Stephen Byers will be left alone to get on with mending the broken-down Tory fences. - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

PETE Winstanley (HAS, Feb 26) quotes text by Eisenhower, a very noble speech, and words that everybody, no matter what their differences or religion, should listen to and strive to act on.

But this is the real world we live in, not some Utopian paradise, and for the words of Eisenhower to come true and put an end to war and conflict, the likes of al Qaida, Saddam, etc must first be rooted out and dealt with.

He then quotes the words of Amber Amundsen, who, like the rest of us, wants a peaceful world to bring up her children, her life scarred forever by September 11. No amount of revenge will ever replace what was taken away by those cowardly vermin of al Qaida. But let's not ever forget that if these terrorists aren't stopped, how many more innocent people will have to go through the pain that Amber has, and still is, feeling.

So please Messrs Winstanley and Pender, in future don't criticise but support the efforts of those trying to make this world a safer place to live. - D Lythe, Willington.

EUROPE

NOW that our cheeky chappie Metric Martyr market traders have been put in their place, we all know who actually runs this country (EU know who).

So, are we now free to anticipate by a natural progression of EU regulations towards ever closer union (as strictly laid down in the existing signed treaties) that we shall soon be driving on the right hand side of the road?

Shall we then have demands that we learn eurospeak, or eurobabble as the cool euroland language? I raise the question in all seriousness as I have come across eurofanatics who would clearly go for this at the drop of a hat.

As a Left-leaning floating voter, I am inclined to think that patriotic old stalwarts of the Left, like Clem Attlee, Ernest Bevin and Manny Shinwell, would be bursting with indignation at the latter day leader of the Labour Party and his troupe of Euroland circus artistes like Peter Hain, Helen Liddell and now Jack Straw, all of whom are saving their necks by going with Tony's flow.

The longer this euro charade goes on the worse it stinks. I know how I will be voting if we ever get a referendum. - Alan Rook, Newcastle.