Hear All Sides

THE TORIES

WE keep reading in HAS about this rotten Labour Government, no doubt from Tory voters who have been hammered at the last two elections.

The record of the Tories' 18 years were the worst in living memory. Interest rates 15 per cent for a year, mortgage rates 15 per cent, record house repossessions, schools, hospitals and transport were left to decay, all of our public services were sold off, water, British Telecom, electric, gas, all sold to their rich friends in the City.

They decimated our industries, coal, shipbuilding, steel. All went under the Tories. Four million unemployed.

Remember the poll tax burden they left for Labour to pay back, £60bn given in taxes to the idle rich. These people must think we will forget all the wrongs the Tories did in those disastrous years. - Gordon Hodgson, Bishop Auckland.

REDMIRE

I WAS interested to read the article (Echo, June 28) by Mike Amos describing the reopening of the village hall at Redmire. My father was born and bred in Redmire.

I think Mike must have had a very grand night in the Kings Arms to confuse the oak tree opposite the village hall with an elm. - Doreen Lloyd (nee Heseltine), Bedale.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

IT was with great interest that I attended the North East Regional Assembly on June 20 for this is a forum which claims to be a new voice for the North.

There is little doubt that if we, as a region, are going to have an impact on national and European centres of power we need such a voice.

Scotland and Wales have such a voice, so do the different regions of Europe. Through such a voice a person in Scotland receives £750 more in public expenditure than a person living in the North-East of England.

Tony Flynn, the leader of Newcastle City Council, was elected as the new chair of the organisation. He pointed out that the Government had now given the assembly a scrutiny role in relationship to One NorthEast, the development agency for the region. He emphasised the fact that this role must not deter the agency's efforts regarding regeneration.

He stressed the need for a democratically-elected assembly which would give it more legitimacy. There is a need to get public support for this in a regional referendum. Procedure for this may be contained in a Government White Paper due to be published later this year.

He finally pointed out that, no matter what form the assembly took, it would still need social partners in efforts to regenerate the region. I share Tony's vision for the region. If effective regional government is good enough for Scotland and Wales and for the rest of Europe, then it is good enough for the North-East of England. - Councillor John Simms, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

EUROPE

THERE are often conflicting claims made about how much of Britain's trade is with the Eurozone. Those who want Britain to replace the pound with the euro regularly assert that the Eurozone is Britain's most important trading partner.

But a new, comprehensive study of Britain's pattern of trade published by the "no" campaign has finally established the facts. Although the Eurozone accounts for 54 per cent of goods exports, it represents just 32 per cent of exports in the service sector and only 36 per cent of income from overseas investments. Overall, our trade with the Eurozone accounts for just 43 per cent of the total.

The study has also revealed that the euro, and old EU currencies such as the franc and deutschmark, are not widely used by British exporters. The majority of exports (51 per cent) are invoiced in sterling.

Because Britain does more trade outside the Eurozone than our EU partners, the one-size-fits-all interest rate set by the European Central Bank would be wrong for our economy. Economic developments in the rest of the world have a greater impact here than in the Eurozone and we must maintain the ability to set an independent economic policy so that we can deliver the right response to these changes. Failure to do this would lead to a re-run of our disastrous experiment in the ERM, which caused unemployment to double. - J Elliott, Chairman, Business For Sterling North East.

VOLUNTEERING

A HUGE thank you to all the organisations for their help in making the 16th annual Volunteers' Week such an outstanding success.

The National Centre for Volunteering, which co-ordinated this special week in England (June 1-7) would also like to thank everyone involved for all the publicity the week received.

This year saw one of the biggest Volunteers' Weeks so far and thousands of organisations across the country held parties, barbecues, concerts and thank-you ceremonies to recognise, reward and recruit - recognise the invaluable contribution volunteers made, reward those who already donate their time and recruit new willing hands.

The activities continue because this year has been designated by the UN as International Year of Volunteers 2001 (IYV2001) and 120 governments from as far afield as the Caribbean, Russia and Madagascar are celebrating the contribution volunteers make to building cohesive societies. A calendar of events and more about IYV2001 can be found on www.iyv2001england.org. - Fiona Shadbolt, National Centre for Volunteering.

RELIGION

IT is sad that so many people are choosing a non-religious funeral these days (Echo, June 25).

It emphasises the fact that far too many people see that life as all there is. How sad that they die expecting nothing more except oblivion. How equally sad that their grieving relatives, no matter how many sweet poems and favourite tunes are played at the ceremony, watch their loved one being buried or cremated believing they're gone forever and they'll never see them again.

Christianity has a huge job to do in teaching this increasingly godless society that there is a future; there is life after death for those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ. - EA Moralee, Billingham.