THE BLAME for the deaths of those poor defenceless souls murdered by a deranged gunman on a beach in Tunisia lies squarely on the hands of our and America's government.

I'm afraid the saying you only reap what you sow is the only way of describing these increasing terrorist attacks carried out against the innocent. Take the murder of Tony Blair's one-time pal Colonel Gaddafi a leader ran his country with a rod of iron.

Or Saddam Hussain - a tyrant definitely, yes - but still the leader of Iraq.

What right do we have to go in to a country, remove its leadership and then leave the rest to get on with it thinking all will be well?

We are now paying the price for interfering with other cultures and countries during the past decade.

How would you feel if someone just decided to come over here and kill whoever they want?

I'm afraid all of this is of our own doing and we should hang our head in shame.

Winston Churchill fought for our country when a tyrant threatened it. Do we expect those we wrong to curl up and hide? What a pity it's too late for an Elastoplast. Action is required and admitting we were wrong would be a good place to start.

John Cumberland, Rushyford.

ISIS terrorism aims to trigger social upheaval and violence in Europe. They want racist attacks in retaliation; they want more 'martyrs' on all sides to tip us into a wider war.

Let's be strong on security, yet statesman-like in addressing genuine grievances such as Palestine, Iraq and Syria. We must confront prejudice, poverty, persecution and fundamentalism wherever it exists .

Across the North-East we need increased conversations between our diverse communities to gain better understanding on how we address the risk of all forms of radicalisation - the risks it poses to our young people and the social cohesion of our region.

We should not just observe and shake our heads in disbelief hoping this will not effect us.

It already does, and we need to do something positive about it.

Ian Jones, North-East Liberal Democrats.