Letters

LAST week, in the House of Lords, Lord Rooker, representing the Prime Minister, announced that the cost of establishing a Regional Assembly in the North-East would be about £30m.

This would include the cost of local government reviews, referenda and the first elections. He did not say who would pay this £30m, but you can be certain it will be the long-suffering council tax payer who will have to foot the bill.

How this Government can justify spending this kind of money, on something in which nobody is interested and nobody wants, yet are considering closing hospitals in Hartlepool and Stockton, puzzles me and I suspect puzzles the vast majority of the population. - E Wilson, Chairman UK Independence Party, Hartlepool.

I FORECAST that the regional assembly will be one big fiasco - another Brussels "gravy train" for washed-up MPs and ex-Cabinet ministers.

It will be millions of pounds of taxpayers' money down the drain. Don't forget the man who started all this is John Prescott, politics' Oliver Hardy.

Now Tony Blair's New Labour is now starting to falter, he has asked for help from Peter Mandelson, Hartlepool's globe trotter. - F Wealands, Darlington.

DIRECTORY INQUIRIES

I FEEL like bringing back 192, the old directory inquiries service.

Three times I have phoned a 118 service and asked for a number that I know is in the phone book only to be told that the company I was trying to contact doesn't exist.

On one occasion I asked for a Bishop Auckland number and, as I didn't have a pen I asked to be connected to the number direct. I found myself talking to a man in Stockton who had no idea who I was, or what I was talking about.

I wish that I could say there was only one service responsible but I had tried several 118 companies. - C McCormick, Spennymoor.

IRAQ

I BELIEVE it was right for Tony Blair to take Britain into war against Iraq.

By joining forces with the Americans and others, an evil regime that oppressed its people was removed.

Following on from victory, the Americans have been successful in capturing several prominent members of the former regime.

These captures should have a marked effect on the war against terrorism. Today, however, there is much nervousness in the world because of the fear of further terrorist attacks and this is particularly true in America.

It was a sombre occasion for the Americans recently when they reflected on what had happened in their country two years ago. - LD Wilson, Guisborough.

EUROPE

ANY grouping that includes Iain Duncan Smith and the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party cannot be based on either principle or honesty.

Yet this bizarre alliance is just what - with the addition of the easily led Green Party - is leading the campaign against the euro in Britain.

Week after week these people are found complaining about this or that imaginary plot from Brussels. Indeed, it seems that paranoia is all that they have in common.

In contrast, the majority of the trade unions, the bulk of the Labour Party and the Lib Dems and the more sensible Conservatives are in favour because they recognise that becoming part of the euro is the logical next step in our being part of the European Union.

Last weekend's vote in Sweden does not change the UK's ultimate destiny.

We should join if and when the economic conditions are right. Our Chancellor recognised that we are not yet ready, and has set in train a "roadmap" to put the economic infrastructure in place to ensure that we move towards that state of readiness.

The EU has increased trade and prosperity, protected the environment and strengthened the rights of working people. Pro-Europeans want to see that progress continue and that is why we want Britain to join the euro. - Joanne Thompson, Ponteland.

HUNTING

HOW typical of Lis Key, International Fund For Animal Welfare, in her letter (HAS, Sept 13) to try to twist the purpose of the Countryside Alliance poster depicting a nurse who hunts.

Far be it from exploitation of the nursing profession, it is purely to show that people who hunt are just like you and me and come from all walks of life.

I note she chose not to mention the one depicting a plumber. No one needs telling about the sterling work nurses do, with long hours and low pay, doing a job many of us would struggle to do, but the nurse shown in the poster still finds time and money to do something that she is passionate about, namely hunting. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same.

The millions of pounds generously donated to IFAW that is spent opposing hunting would be far better spent trying to protect the endangered species of the world, and not the fox, who has to be controlled, and has been successfully for centuries by hunts.

Please note I say controlled and not wiped out. - Joe Townsend, Northallerton.