EDUCATION: IT was illiberal thinking by Kevin Thompson (HAS, Jul 9) when he accused Durham County Council of subterfuge in the overhaul plan for future education needs, especially those dealing with primary education.

If he ever takes a walk around Middlestone Moor he will see what the county council means when they talk of modernisation. Two primary schools were closed and a modern replacement was erected in Rock Road where children are being educated to meet the challenges of the new technological age.

Councillor Thompson would prefer to have children educated in school buildings built for a previous era when the horse and carriage and steam trains were the main forms of transport.

Children should be educated in a modern school building at the earliest opportunity or they will lose opportunities later in life.

Closing today's door gives education the chance to open the door to tomorrow, because that is the direction in which children are moving. - Thomas Conlon, Spennymoor.

VIDEO GAMES

FOR years the "experts" have said that watching violent films and playing violent video games does not affect the behaviour of children.

The claim has always been that children are capable of differentiating between real and make-believe.

The case of the 11-year-old boy being banned from driving (Echo, Jul 22) would seem to put the lie to the experts' point of view.

The boy's own description of what his favourite video game involves - stealing cars and smashing them into others - proves he was influenced to act out his obsession with the game in reality.

This boy admits playing the game for hours on end. Surely, the very least part of his punishment should be to take his widescreen television away out of his bedroom and have the game destroyed.

Common sense tells you that if a child feeds its brain on violence for hours each day, then somewhere along the line their behaviour and mental state will be damaged.

The experts are wrong on this one. Violent or explicitly sexual or games based on criminal acts should be banned. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

IRAQ DOSSIER

THE recriminations are now coming thick and fast over Iraq.

The Hutton Inquiry is a waste of time and will no doubt serve to muddy already murky waters.

The BBC has every right to question Government policy and actions. After all it was only saying what the majority were thinking, and that is the Government had no real reason to go to war.

Sometimes the truth is painfully obvious and in the war against Iraq, despite the terrible reputation of Saddam Hussein, Iraq did not present a threat to ourselves or the Americans and, as we keep on saying Saddam had blood on his hands, then, uncomfortable though it may be, so do we.

The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists voted against war, dare we hope it will be reflected in coming elections?

Before the Conservatives think the Government's discomfiture will lead them to an election victory, do not forget they voted to go to war and do not seem to me to be an alternative government.

Better the devil you know! - H Pender, Darlington.

BECAUSE some people think that it was right to invade Iraq because of 9/11 I think that it is significant that the US Congress report on the failure of the intelligence services to prevent the tragedy states quite clearly that Iraq had no part in the incident.

The report was presented to the White House last December, and has only now been published, with the omission of a number of pages which contained sensitive material. It is reported that a prominent American Democrat has said that in these missing pages there is mention of a Saudi hand being played. If this is true it will be inconvenient in view of the cordial relations that exist with the Saudi royal family.

I am sure that if we wait long enough all the truth will be teased out. In the meantime the alleged connection between the former Iraqi regime and Al qaida has not been confirmed as a reason for going to war. This could have been the reason because since 9/11 the Americans have seen the world through the prisms of those events.

I can see Tony Blair's face reddening more as each day passes. - Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

RECYLING

COULD anyone explain why, under the new system of recycling proposed for Darlington (Echo Jul 31), we will no longer be able to put out cardboard?

Because of the prevalence of excess packaging, we regularly put out one bag of cardboard a week. Presumably, this will now have to go in with the normal rubbish, which is surely a backwards step.

Also, I notice that the new box will take glass but the list of items which will not be collected includes glass!

We had a perfectly good system working in this area which efficiently collected both paper and cardboard every week. All it needed was extending to include plastic and glass. Instead, the council in its wisdom has imposed a fortnightly (not weekly) collection which does not pick up something that the old one did.

And that's progress? - Harry Bunting, Darlington.