POLICE: I MUST agree with Tom Amos (HAS, Mar 22) that a 76 per cent increase in rates for the police force in North Yorkshire is beyond belief as in this area they do not appear to exist.

Is the increase to enable them to have better vehicles or offices in which to carry out their duties?

I bet that the increase is not for footwear, as the sighting of an officer on the beat would be recorded as an apparition. - Martin Flanagan, Catterick Garrison.

MIDDLE EAST

MY husband and I refer to Dave Atkinson's remarks made (HAS, Mar 19) concerning Israel, showing his bias against Israel.

Terrorist attacks have been carried out in Israel by Arab countries who refuse to acknowledge her right to exist as a nation.

She is the only democratic nation in the Middle East. Her only desire is to live in peace with her neighbours, but some Arab states sponsor terrorism against her.

Israel has tried to establish secure and recognised boundaries, but it needs a negotiating partner who will keep its side of the agreement.

Under the Oslo agreement this includes a duty to arrest and detain terrorists, to refrain from acts of incitement and to confiscate illegal arms, all of which have been breached by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in that Israel has been forced to deploy its own troops in the West Bank to prevent attacks.

We in Great Britain had the right to defend our country against the Nazi invasion during the last war and Israel has the right to defend her country and people against terrorist attacks. She has only ever used her weapons for defence purposes. - Mrs P Springer, Hartlepool.

GALA THEATRE

THERE has been much said to the detriment of the Gala Theatre in Durham City.

However, I must write in praise of this very welcome, local facility. I can only speak as I find.

I and my family have visited the theatre three times this year already and have been so impressed with everything about the place: the comfortable and spacious seating, the general good feeling - it is just great to have the calibre of these shows available on our doorstep, instead of having to travel to Newcastle or Darlington.

Each show we have been has been of excellent quality and has been seen by near capacity audiences and I think, given more time, the Gala should begin to show a profit.

No one should knock the Gala until they have been. There's something for everyone there. - Mrs S Kennedy, Spennymoor.

STEEL INDUSTRY

IF you wish to support the steel industry on Teesside please get your facts right.

Steel is not made at Redcar, which has a blast furnace plant making iron. This is turned into steel at Lackenby in a plant near Grangetown Station. - RJ Walters, Sandsend.

SINGLE CURRENCY

A COMMENT often made by readers is that they are not given enough information regarding the European single currency on which to form an opinion.

However, I would add that information is widely available if only they looked in the right places.

The most despicable and frightening tool the BBC uses is censorship, the non-reporting of stories and facts, which present the EU unfavourably, and expose the fundamentally corrupt and undemocratic nature of the beast.

I give as an example a recent report coming out of Italy entitled: Euro, the robbery of the century. This report said that changing from the lira to the euro has cost the average Italian family 1,500 euros (£1,000) in 2002.

There had been a massive scale "rounding up" of prices by businesses and services.

A real telling point was that all banks in Italy are now imposing extra charges on their customers to compensate for their "loss of currency exchange business".

Added to this report were the findings of a recent Italian opinion poll showing that 90 per cent of those polled agreed that prices had increased dramatically since the advent of the euro.

Not one word of this report saw the light of day on BBC radio or TV.

The definition of informed debate is knowing both sides of an argument; this is not the BBC's definition. - D Pascoe, Press Secretary, Hartlepool Branch, UK Independence Party.

FIRE SERVICE

WHY don't the firefighters accept a 100 per cent pay rise and go back to the times when the fire brigades were denationalised and worked a 24 hours on and 24 hours off system of two shifts.

It will still give them three days off one week and four days off the next week, so they can easily do a second job.

One man from each shift could share another job and have an extra wage to share at the end of the week.

Experience in fire fighting cannot be got by training. It can only be obtained by putting out fires. Three out of every four firefighters are off duty generally doing another job.

Since it only requires half the number of firefighters, this shift system can given them double their wages and the brigade will be twice as experienced.

Of course to revert to the 24-24 system it will only require half the number of men as the present system does so the ratepayers will not have to pay any extra if pay goes up double. Job losses can be made by voluntary redundancies or retirement on pensions. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

DARLINGTON FC

GEORGE Reynolds' most recent antics seem to be living proof that there are many people who have more money than sense.

How can he justify the attention that his amateur sign-writing activities bring as being good for Darlington? The only attention he is bringing to the area is from people who shake their heads in disbelief. - Michael Walker, Stockton.