SVEN-GORAN ERIKSSON

PETER Mullen's reaction to the appointment of Sven-Goran Eriksson as coach of the England football team (Echo, Jan 16) missed the obvious candidate for parody. Himself.

Has anyone noticed that Sven-Goran Eriksson is the product of a Scandinavian socialist Utopia? This appointment beggars belief and obviously bears all the hallmarks of interference by New Labour and their spin doctors.

Before you know it, the team will be receiving advice on nutrition from a woman, probably an unmarried mother. Clearly none of Tony Blair's cronies have dared to point out that the World Cup has never been won by a Communist state. Mr Eriksson is doomed to the failure his effete liberal upbringing deserves. Before long, hordes of disenchanted football supporters will be banging on the door of Lancaster Gate, demanding compensation for the stress they have suffered, when the responsibility lies not with the FA but with the control freak Tony Blair and his New Labour smoke and mirrors.

In my day, we had a team of white Englishmen led by a white English manager and managed to win the World Cup despite the nannying of the then Stalinist Labour Government. - T McNeilly, Darlington.

LEN SHACKLETON

I AM writing on behalf of my recently-widowed mother and our family to express our heart-felt thanks to all of those among your readers who sent cards and messages of condolence in the weeks following my father, Len Shackleton's, death.

The widespread nature of the response to the sad news was truly astonishing; letters have even been sent via Sunderland Football Club and have arrived from all corners of the country. Some have contained poems, some have extended to several pages and some have even been anonymous.

One in particular, in the latter category, would have appealed to my father's quite dry sense of humour - the card simply read: "From an Arsenal Supporter."

He specifically asked members of the family not to feel sorry for him in the event of his passing. He was the first to recognise how fortunate he had been throughout his 78 years, having been able to earn a living, firstly from participating in, then later reporting upon, the games he loved: soccer and cricket - with general golfing activities thrown in for good measure.

Formal displays/tributes are planned both by his home-town club of Bradford Park Avenue and, on Wearside, at SAFC. They will follow the recent and perhaps the most surprising tribute of all - the complete sell-out of the 4,000 copies of the standard edition of his third book, Return of the Clown Prince.

Again, on behalf of the whole family, many thanks for making us realise just how well he must have been thought of by such a broad cross section of the North-East public and by very many others elsewhere in the country. - RA Shackleton and Family, Durham.

RACISM

PETER Winstanley (HAS, Jan 8) is making a generalisation from three selected instances and, while there is no problem with the suggestion that racism is wrong, the Macpherson Report is flawed and will only create more problems and solve nothing.

London has a massive problem with illegal immigrants which is creating a boiling pot for discontent. This is cause and effect. The Macpherson Report has insulted the Metropolitan Police and has accused it of racism, which, in itself, has created bigger problems than it is supposed to solve.

To think the London police are preparing to put their careers on the line and at the same time be accused of racism is unforgivable and I hope will one day will cost this Government and those who are behind this mischief.

One of the problems the British people are facing is a total ignoring of their wishes and needs because, whether they like it or not, ethnic minorities and illegal immigrants have first priority. - John Young, Crook.

CONSIGNIA

WHAT a ridiculous waste of money - £2m spent on changing the name of the Post Office to Consignia (Echo, Jan 10).

There is nothing wrong with the familiar name of Post Office. People know what service it provides. In contrast, Consignia sounds alien, unfriendly even.

Just because we are in a new century does not mean that everything from the past has to be modernised. This is clearly a case of the old saying: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

NOW that our figures have been finalised I would, on behalf of the members of the Willington branch of the Royal British Legion, like to thank the people of Willington, Sunnybrow, Hunwick, Helmington Row and Oakenshaw for their generosity in donating £2,079 to the Poppy Appeal.

We would also like to thank our Poppy Appeal organiser, Mrs Pauline Connor. - R. Middleton, president, Royal British Legion, Willington, Crook.

LABOUR PARTY

IF Ray Mallon is right when he says that the electorate is more educated and sophisticated than ever before (Echo, Jan 11), then the Labour Party really should struggle to hold on to any seats in the North-East.

True, they promised not to increase income tax rates, but actually seeing that policy implemented and also the sight of a Labour Chancellor boasting about cutting a penny from the base rate, really does demonstrate how far removed this party is from traditional Labour values and therefore traditional Labour voters.

On top of this, last week we had the ludicrous situation of the man who takes 60p from every litre of petrol sold criticisng those who take 11p (the oil companies) for overcharging!

There can only be two explanations for this nonsense, either the Chancellor is a fool (which is probably unlikely) or he believes that the public are.

Roll on the next General Election. - K O'Brien, Ferryhill.

AIRCRAFT

I WAS interested in the report of circling Jumbo (Echo, Jan 10) and Geoff Richardson's comment: "We've never had anything like that before."

Well, I can assure Geoff that it has happened many times in this region.

I can recall Nimrod aircraft (modified Comet HC) flying around doing huge circles many years ago.

I would say that the aircraft seen this week (replacing the Nimrod) would be a Boeing E-3A Sentry. These aircraft were delivered to Nato in 1982 and full deployment followed in 1984.

This aircraft is smaller than the 747 Jumbo, having a wingspan of 145ft and length of 152ft, Jumbo being 195ft wingspan, 231ft long respectively. The Boeing E-3A is capable of a seven-hour search and unrefuelled endurance of 11.5 hours. - W Lee, Crook.

INVESTMENT

JOHN Elliot was right to say Britain has been a magnet for foreign investment (HAS, Jan 8).

However, despite increased investment from abroad, our share of the total investment in Europe has decreased from 28 per cent to 24 per cent, while in France it has increased from 12 per cent to 18 per cent.

The biggest increases were recorded in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Italy, all of which are members of the strengthening euro. He is also right to say that we do more trade outside the EU than other members, but fails to point out most of our trade is with the EU. Because we are outside the euro, this has hit our manufacturing industry hard.

Up to 66,000 people have lost out because Britain is outside the eurozone. Pro-Europeans have been warning about the problems posed by currency volatility for some time and our opponents have had no answer.

It is time they realised that they are putting real jobs and firms' continued investment in this country at risk from what they are saying. - N Milligan, Regional Organiser, European Movement in the North-East.