06/065/06

RECENTLY, I received a Labour campaign letter listing what were described as achievements. They claimed crime was reducing, yet Home Office figures state that drug offences have rocketed by 21 per cent; violent crime by one per cent; sex crimes by three per cent; and robberies (including muggings) by six per cent.

Can I inform the sender of several items missing from the leaflet?

1. Care home charges have risen by 50 per cent in the last five years while the state pension has risen by only 25 per cent.

2. Some 29,000 children are now in overcrowded classrooms - an increase of 5,000 in the past year alone.

3. More than £2bn has been overpaid in tax credit, most of which will never be recovered. As usual, taxpayers will have to bear the brunt.

4. More than half the houses built for key workers (teachers, police, social workers) to buy remain empty.

5. Knife crime on our streets has reached an all-time high.

6. Last year's figures show that only 54 per cent of pupils leaving school had attained Level 4 in maths/English/reading - essential to cope with GCSE work.

Can I suggest that Labour collect their leaflets and rewrite them?

Peter Morrison, Guisborough.

PROMISES I MIGHT vote for you if I felt I could trust you - but:

Has Labour restored workers' rights eroded by Margaret Thatcher?

Has Labour restored the link between pensions and wages?

Is Labour going to sack thousands of public servants?

Are hundreds of nurses being removed?

Is Labour going to give away all our schools to unelected bodies at a knockdown price of zero?

Is Labour forcing councils to set up colleges run by self-interested unaccountable bodies and financed by us?

Are workers going to have work until they are too old to enjoy retirement?

Is Labour spending thousand of millions on wars while neglecting its own sick and aged?

I could go on, but what is the use? Tony Blair listens to no one and spins the line that if we only let him do anything he wants, it will be good for us. We are not thought to have any intelligence.

He was elected in a democracy, but runs a tyranny. I left the Labour Party because too many people insisted on doing what they wanted and always told me I did not know all the facts and could not understand it.

Well I know what is right and what is wrong, and would prefer to do what is right rather than follow the party line.

Tom Cooper, Durham City.

DISMANTLE CABINET SYSTEM

CONGRATULATIONS to Councillor Albert Nugent and his supporters on his rise to leadership of Durham County Council (Echo, April 27).

I hope his victory is the first step towards democracy. The next step should be the dismantling of the secretive cabinet system of local government and a return to open debate among all councillors.

Those councillors holding Lib Dem or Tory principles have a perfect right to do so, but only if they are open members of those parties.

Non-socialists using Labour Party membership as a cover for personal ambition need to be replaced with people who empathise with the weak and vulnerable in society.

It is worth realising that businesses, lawyers, haulage firms, etc, inflate prices and fees to include their tax liabilities, which means that only wage earners and pensioners, the end-users, actually pay VAT, corporation, fuel and council taxes and it is they who deserve priority in benefits from those taxes.

That is fair play which is the basic principle of socialism and the Labour Party.

John W Scott, Kelloe, Durham.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

THE number of murders being committed in this country, particularly within the North-East, is causing me concern. We can read almost daily in The Northern Echo of someone dying at the hands of another human being.

The suffering that an individual must succumb to at the time of death is incomprehensible, as is what their family and friends have to go through.

The individual who commits such a crime is thinking to him or herself that they will never be caught - or if they are, that the punishment will not always reflect what they have done and that they will be out of prison within a few years.

The scientific capabilities that the police have at their disposal nowadays in detecting and bringing to court criminals are of such a high standard that they must be 100 per cent accurate.

Police, firemen and paramedics put in the firing line in a lot of confrontational situations are risking their lives in carrying out a lawful duty and they are suffering.

I am not advocating that we go back to hanging, but we do have a method of lethal injection.

David Johnson, Bishop Auckland.

SORT IT OUT

I AM aghast over five councillors being found guilty of bullying and harassment to Margaret Barry, Richmondshire District Council's monitoring officer (Echo, Apr 27).

I firmly believe these people should look at themselves and do what they were appointed to do, serve the people, and not by letting themselves be involved in such awful goings on.

It was in all the local papers and I, among others, think this matter could have been sorted in a different manner.

Councillors are voted in by the people to serve the people, and I am sure they have done themselves no favours.

Don't drag yourselves down more. Please sort it out, as taxpayers do not want "Yes sir, no sir" meetings. They want value for money meetings regardless of anything - results, not a slanging match. Please do that in your gang in your own time, not in that of Richmondshire taxpayers.

Anne French, Colburn, North Yorkshire

HELP FOR HEDGEHOGS

THE decline of the hedgehog population in this country continues, with 75 per cent never seeing their first birthday. In the wake of Hedgehog Awareness Week, which ends today, a reminder of how we can assist Britain's only spiny mammal seems appropriate.

In hot and dry weather, a bowl of water could save a life. Putting out a dish of cat or dog food is a bonus, especially for nursing mothers during the breeding season (May to October). No bread and milk, please!

Drive carefully at night and look out for hedgehogs (if possible moving them away from danger).

Hedgehogs are considered the gardener's friend, yet we cause them problems. Check bonfire piles, preferably moving them, before igniting in case a hedgehog is nesting. Take care when forking over compost heaps. Use pesticides sparingly and place slug pellets, which can kill hedgehogs, under slabs and remove dead slugs daily.

Although hedgehogs can swim, ponds can be death traps, so ensure there is an escape route, such as chicken wire over the side. Garden netting can trap hedgehogs, as can carelessly discarded litter.

Finally, if you see a hedgehog in daytime, it will almost certainly be sick and need help. There is a hedgehog hospital in Darlington. Please check the following website for details - www.clevelandhedgehogs.org.uk

Iris Davison, Cleveland Hedgehog Preservation Society, Darlington.

REDS, BLUES AND GREENS

ANYONE watching TV or reading newspapers in the run-up to last Thursday's local elections would have seen the undignified spectacle of Labour and Conservatives scrabbling for green votes.

David Cameron swanning off to Norway to look at glaciers, Labour wanting to commission a new generation of nuclear power stations, and both Labour and Conservatives wanting to build over large swathes of the green belt - all these actions simply help to highlight both parties' tissue paper-thin concern for the environment in using these policies as simply a green flag of convenience.

Councillor Martin Jones, Environment Spokesman, Spennymoor Liberal Democrats.

TICKETS GALORE

I NOTICE a bus company has stated that more people are travelling by bus since free travel came into effect. I rather think the more probable reason is that more tickets are being issued making it appear so. Drivers simply used to glance at the passes and wave you on. Now, they issue tickets. How about this for an example?

Three friends and myself, all Darlington pensioners, decided to do a walk from Gainford to Winston. All of us were issued with one free ticket from Darlington to the boundary, which was Piercebridge. My friend and I bought a return ticket from Piercebridge to Gainford (£2) and two friends - as an experiment - bought singles (£1.30).

Coming back from Winston, my friend and I bought one single each back to Gainford while our friends bought singles back to Piercebridge (their experiment paid off, they were 30p each better off).

Then we all needed our free ticket from Piercebridge to Darlington. In all, four of us were issued 16 tickets.

I was sorry for the bus drivers, sorry for the environment using all that paper and last, but not least, sorry for ourselves - we should have tried for more A-levels at school to work that lot out.

S Gargett, Darlington.

ANIMAL RESEARCH

FOR all the answers to disease we've found in the past 50 years, there are still so many for which we have no solution. Researchers are working around the clock and the globe to find effective treatments and cures for conditions from Alzheimer's to asthma.

At the heart of that work is the use of animals, which continue to provide the best possible model for medical research, for finding the cures for the diseases and conditions that affect, directly or indirectly, every family in the country.

Last month, the Coalition for Medical Progress, an alliance of organisations with an interest in medical research, launched its online People's Petition to give the silent majority a voice. The Petition is anonymous, allowing people to sign up securely.

Individuals can register their belief that medical research is essential for developing safe and effective medical and veterinary treatments, requiring some studies using animals; that, where there is no alternative available, medical research using animals should continue in the UK; and that people involved in medical research using animals have a right to work and live without fear of intimidation or attack.

Within 48 hours of its launch, it had been signed by 10,000 people. To sign, go to www.thepeoplespetition.org.uk

Jo Tanner, Chief Executive, Coalition for Medical Progress, London.

PRECIOUS PLANTS

THE rise of the superbug, invulnerable to the strongest modern antibiotics, presents medical science with its greatest challenge ever: one that, if not defeated, could bring back those terrible contagions - TB diphtheria, etc - that, in the West at any rate, we thought we had put behind us for good.

Researchers appear to be nowhere near a solution, but that, I suggest, is because they are looking in the wrong place. Their efforts are concentrated upon fungi (which are, of course, the source of conventional antibiotics) to the exclusion of plants and algae.

Plants are a vast untapped reservoir of potent antiseptic, antibiotic and even anti-viral compounds. Take garlic: it will cure the common cold, which a conventional antibiotic will not.

Even such common, and safe, wild flowers as heather, sweet cicily, ribwort plantain and ribbed melilot are potential weapons in the fight against deadly infections.

Plants are, indeed, our most precious natural resource and we should husband them with loving care. In more ways than one they are the key to our survival.

Tony Kelly, Crook.

INDEPENDENT COUNCILLORS

I WAS very concerned to read that the writer Julie Jones claimed to have spent a lot of money standing for election as an Independent councillor (HAS, May 3).

There is an upper limit to the amount one can spend; this is calculated on the number of residents in the ward they hope to represent and all spending must be accompanied by a receipt to prevent anyone going over the limit.

There are approximately 4,000 people in my ward and the election cost me less than £200, which was for leaflets printed. Since then, I have found out that several prospective councillors can approach a local printer and negotiate a deal, thus reducing the cost even further.

Of course, it all depends on how many sets of leaflets you wish to put out. Other people produce their own leaflets on their computers, thus reducing the costs even further.

I would be interested to know exactly how much the writer did spend and was her letter simply a means of putting off any prospective Independent councillor?

Joan McTigue, Independent Councillor, Middlesbrough Council.

MIGRANT WORKERS

THOSE who object to migrant workers coming here from the new EU member states in Eastern Europe should bear in mind that we have essentially pooled our territories.

As these countries have low population densities and low birth rates, this is potentially a very good deal for us.

One example of how we could benefit concerns the problem of the Home Secretary turning dangerous criminals loose onto the streets because he can't afford new prisons here. He could instead put them where the land and labour to build and operate such facilities would be much cheaper.

John Riseley, Harrogate.

WHAT A WIT

I VERY much enjoy reading Peter Barron's new column, From The Editor's Chair.

It is nice to be told of the interesting people in public life that Mr Barron has met.

One would imagine that the public figures themselves would be aware of establishing a good working relationship with the regional Press.

There is, of course, a humorous side to the column, too, and Mr Barron's account of the disastrous consequences that can follow from a misprint in the paper was hilarious (Echo, May 1).

An informative and witty column indeed.

L D Wilson, Guisborough.

CROSSINGS CONCERN

PARENTS who live in Redcar and Cleveland borough will soon need reassuring that their children will be safe to cross roads to local schools, especially as Redcar and Cleveland's Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Independent "coalition" council wants to cut the retention pay for lollipop ladies during the holidays. Will the council promise us parents that someone will be in place to make sure our children are safe crossing the road to school?

Frances Watson, Brotton.