AMERICA: HOW many more Americans are going to come over to England to show us how it should be done?

We now hear on the BBC news programme that the Government is to appoint an American as head of standards to show the British people how to improve the police services.

We have an American showing us how to run the London Underground, another showing the Royal College of Nursing how it should be done. I thought that Tony Blair agreed with President Bush that Iraq needed Americanising, not England.

This does not give Mr Blair and his New Labour lot much credibility with their claims, when another 'Fat Cat' director is awarded a golden handshake for mediocre performance, that rewards go to the best people. There can't be many best people over here if we have to keep importing Americans to do top jobs.

Mr Blair has given the Americans unlimited use of our armed forces, placing them under American control in Bosnia, Afghanistan and now Iraq. They have control of one of Britain's major radar stations on the Yorkshire moors and they are making preparations to bring here some of their decommissioned naval vessels, which it is claimed are an environmental hazard and court action may be taken to stop them being moved over here for scrapping.

It's becoming clearer why President Bush gave Mr Blair the Congressional Gold Medal; it's for service to the American dream of world domination, which is not being started in Iraq, but over here. - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

RAILWAY HERITAGE

I WAS very interested in reading your Comment (Echo, Sept 8) on the different attitudes to local historical railway heritage in this area.

Shildon Town, and latterly Sedgefield District Council has always supported its railway heritage, mainly because of the fact that it views it as a community resource, in the same way as it was wholeheartedly behind the community when British Rail closed the wagon works, thus virtually severing the raison d'etre for Shildon even existing as a town.

Darlington, on the other hand, views it as a cultural resource, along with places like the Arts Centre and the Civic Theatre.

The difference - Shildon and Weardale needs its railway heritage to survive with the demise of what was a major employer in the area. On the other hand, Darlington Borough Council takes a more blas approach, being larger and less reliant on tourism.

As for the Weardale Railway, that too is likely to succeed. It is viewed as a community resource and will be needed to generate income now that industry is declining, though I suspect that steam may only operate again to Shildon. - Graham Eason, Darlington.

JAMIE OLIVER

WATCHING Jamie's Kitchen on Channel 4 on September 2, where Jamie Oliver was teaching students to be chefs, I was disgusted with the bad language he was using in front of these young people.

Surely someone in his position could refrain from using it and set an example, or have we come to the stage where it is accepted? - Mrs JH Mann, Sedgefield.

CRIME

AFTER the recent Barnard Castle bank robbery, I wonder why the security companies and the police cannot pre-arrange for a security company van to meet a police car at the bank?

I realise a police car may be diverted from normal duties and some expense may occur, but nothing like the danger to life, financial loss and work a successful robbery can create. - L Lewis, Bishop Auckland.

TEENAGERS

I AM dismayed by the double standards of those newspapers which have given their front pages to obviously posed pictures of early teenage runaways embracing each other with the brand name of a designer garment clearly showing.

We live in the hyped-up fear - encouraged by the very same newspapers - that every business person eating his or her midday sandwiches on a sunny park seat will be either a terrorist or a murderous child abuser.

Even without this fear those newspapers know very well that their "romantic" approach to ever earlier sexual maturity will encourage other children to do and want likewise.

But it is parents and guardians who face the youngsters' demands for titillating designer clothing and who will foot the bill in anguish and money if anything goes wrong.

I am no puritan, but to be absolutely blunt about this matter, I cannot have very much patience with parents who clothe their seven and eight year olds with bare-belly pullovers and who festoon these little ones with spangled jewellery and adult handbags.

Such childhood fashions reek of earlier and earlier sexuality and its commercialised "spin-offs" at an age when children themselves are totally unable to cope with it, or the parents to afford it. - E Turnbull, Gosforth.