Letters

A RECENT correspondent (HAS, July 27) highlighted the inherent racism of an Echo sports article in which a black football player was described as "having the touch of a bull elephant and a female hippo's understanding of the off-side trap" (The Euro 2000 Bit On the Side, June 21).

Given that recent research shows that actually more women understand the off-side rule than do men, this choice of imagery was not only racist, it was blatantly sexist.

I suggest a crash course in anti-stereotyping and in the selection of more acceptable metaphor or you risk alienating a considerable section of your readers. - A Cuthbert, Darlington.

IMMORAL POP STARS

SPORTY Spice Mel C and J from 5ive are yet another high profile couple giving a clear message to their fans that it is perfectly all right to live together in lust rather than love (Echo, July 25).

J declares they will stay faithful as long as they are together, in modern parlance, as long as they fancy each other.

He says he doesn't know if he's in love. Poor boy, he isn't mature enough to understand the difference between a juvenile crush and love.

It's a good thing he doesn't want children. There's already far too many boys who became fathers through lust with the same lack of maturity as J is displaying, messing up the lives of their children. Grow up J and all the other so called pop stars. Set a good example to your fans. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

SPEEDING

THE TEACHER and children responsible for the report about traffic speeding in the village of Bishopton are to be congratulated on their study (Echo, July 19).

However, their report and the police response raises many issues, the main one being that Bishopton is not the only place in County Durham in which speeding occurs.

The police say that they are going to carry out a survey of Bishopton. Why not other areas of the country such as Sedgefield and particularly Station Road and Spring Lane?

The children came up with ideas to control speeding using traffic-calming measures; they again are needed in all areas of the county but County Durham seems to be very short on these measures. They cause cars to slow down, they are cheap, relative to the cost of policemen and cameras, and are on duty 24 hours a day. - D Mitchell, Sedgefield.

ASYLUM-SEEKERS

JOHN Seacroft's accusations about asylum seekers (HAS, July 22) obviously ignores the real issue. The British have paid their taxes for many years to help other nations.

The issue is about the illegal immigrants, the majority economic, and not the persecuted, war-inflicted souls who wish to use the usual excuse of entry on humanitarian grounds.

It is the left-wing element whose ignorance and sentimental hog-wash would have us all on the same level as those nations whose behaviour is inexcusable.

It is the responsibility of the citizen of any nation to strive for a better life for themselves and the nation to which they belong. Yet, because of their once ignorance and apathy, they fail to achieve what the British have made for themselves.

I am not happy with the British establishment and its failure to deliver to many of the British people but at least there is some resemblance of civil behaviour, which is lacking in many nations whose citizens have a basic choice to put their house in order or take the consequences.

The Labour Party has on many occasions promised the less well off a better future. It is time it started to put these words into practice and stop meddling in the affairs of everybody else. - John Young, Crook.

FOLLOWING the recent case of an "asylum seeker" caught in a lewd act with horses and another running away with an underage girl, I have to ask has our immigration service lost the plot? It seems to let anybody in without any knowledge of a person's character or health. It is not as if Britain has a shortage of problems of its own. - T Agnew, Darlington.

A NATION which has forgotten its past, said Churchill, can have no future. He was so very right.

At a time when many Englishmen are confused as to their true feelings towards the multi-racial, multi-cultural society, I have discovered a quote from Spenser which adds a new dimension to the issue:

Dear Country, O how dearly dear

Ought thy remembrance and perpetual band

Be to thy foster child, that from thy hand

Did common breath and nouriture receive?

How brutish is it not to understand

How much to her we owe that all us gave? - A Lightfoot, Bridlington.

SECTION 28

THANK heavens the Lords voted for the continuation of Section 28.

I find every aspect of homosexuality disgusting, and if Tony Blair and his cabinet of gay enthusiasts ever scrapped it, I would withdraw my child from the sickening education he would find compulsory.

The sooner this anti-British minister gets voted out of Government, the better. Not content with ignoring the plight of his own people and closing down factory after factory, he is now wanting our children to be taught about homosexuality at school. Resign Blair. Your policies make me vomit. - C Wardell, Darlington.

DARLINGTON PATHS

DARLINGTON Council is to be congratulated on making good the path leading from Edinburgh Drive to Broadmeadows.

What a pity it did not think to repair the existing path from Dalkeith Close to the main path. This would have been a boon for the elderly residents of Dalkeith House (and other local people) who regularly use this path to get to the local shops and bus stops.

Lets hope this "oversight" can be rectified - hopefully before the bad weather. - RC Elliott, Darlington.