ROB Merrick's articles headlined "Taxing Times" (Echo, Oct 4) and "Inheritance Tax cut won't help the North-East" (Echo, Oct 2) were quick to embrace Labour's attempts to expose the so-called "gaping"

holes in the Tory tax plans. But, even if Alistair Darling has his numbers correct, and his Treasury advisers have stated they don't know what the true numbers are, what are we talking about?

We are talking of an amount the BBC says is £2.9bn, implying an enormous sum of money.

However, the Chancellor extorts this much money from us in well under two days. Put another way, £2.9bn represents just about one half of one per cent of the total spent by Government. Any half-way competent manager in any company in the country could shave that tiny percentage off his/her budget without breaking sweat.

Independent sources have suggested that Government wastes over £100bn every year of the money it demands of us with menaces.

Cutting that waste by less than three per cent will remove that "gaping black hole" entirely. There are many of us who would wish that our own budgetting exercises were that easy.

Derek Thornton, Stanley Crook, Co Durham.

I ESPECIALLY liked David Cameron's wish in his Conservative Party conference speech to have more accountable mayors across the country. This particularly hits home in Darlington.

It appears that the recent mayoral election was a battle and not the war.

I hope Mr Cameron carries this through when the Tories are elected, and all major towns with a population over 100,000 have a government-imposed elected mayoral contest throughout the UK.

Those who cry "not right" should accept that politics is a very dirty game. For example, when the public gives the wrong answer, they are ignored and have imposed upon them what the Government thinks is best - see the European Constitution, now Treaty.

David also indicated that the North-East Regional Assembly will be got rid of. For once, change for the better is in the air.

Mark Anderson, Middleton St George.