FARMING: I AM a small-scale livestock farmer and I am convinced that the 20-day restriction of movement of livestock has little to do with disease control but a lot to do with the Government's Livestock Reduction Scheme.

The Government is now in the position of the engineer who was hoisted with his own petard. We therefore do not have to prove the Government is guilty of surreptitiously imposing a livestock reduction scheme. We are now free to judge them by circumstantial evidence, of which there is an absolute abundance.

Just as the Thatcher government phased out coal mining, steel making and ship building, so the Blairite Government is phasing out productive farming.

It is absolutely necessary to do so in order to accommodate farm imports, not only from Eastern Europe but also from South America. - George W Nicholson, Morpeth.

EDUCATION

I DREW different conclusions than EA Moralee (HAS Dec 2) from the exclusion of 117 students from All Saints College on Tyneside. I hope that there are alternative arrangements for the 117.

I have always thought that it was a minority in a classroom who disrupted the work, though I have not been able to put a figure on it. We now know the dimensions of the problem.

I have had two experiences of class disruptions. The first was when I failed the scholarship and spent my time until I was 14 in a school that was a war zone. I learnt nothing. Then, later in life as a visiting lecturer at colleges, I had classes where a disruptive minority made it a nightmare.

I do not regret the removal of corporal punishment. It was not my experience that it made schools more orderly. When I was at the senior school it would have been great if somebody had cared about my rights. Sometimes the whole class would be punished. - Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

YEARS ago Labour pointed out that secondary modern schools lagged behind selective grammar schools.

Instead of assisting the secondary modern schools, Labour destroyed the best free education in the world, the grammar school. Gone went the chance for the more able working-class kid to compete on equal terms.

Not forgetting Labour introduced the £1,100 tuition fee, those again who want the best for their kids will be asked to pay university tuition fees up to £10,000 per year.

Labour's inner sanctum is still filled with concrete-headed dinosaurs preaching class war. They see this as another chance to bash respectable working people, whose values are hard work, family life, thrift and self discipline.

On the flip side, create ridiculous targets and more universities with worthless courses, then the net result will require extra funding. For what? Some weird perceived need for a nation of graduates.

Universities should be elitist, on ability alone, irrespective of background. Those elite few who excel at core subjects like science, maths and technology should be nurtured free of charge to create the jobs of the future. - J Tague, Chairman, Conservative Party, Bishop Auckland Branch.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

"FREEDOMS for flagship councils" (Echo, Nov 27) means rates can be increased by councils.

The brakes come off and flagship councils will not be rewarded by extra money from the Government. As services are increasingly hived off by councils, the only real expansion will be a bureaucratic one, with local government becoming an administration for central government, increasingly so in any regional government, where likewise, no extra money is promised.

All this suits any national government, as the voice of local elections fades away, already underway with low turn outs, disinterested and increasingly disenfranchised people. How many young people know what "franchise" means? Young people have yet to fight for democracy? - Councillor Tony Pelton, Catterick.

MIDDLE EAST

A RECENT correspondent stated they had lost sympathy for the Palestinians because of suicide bombers.

By all means condemn the suicide bombers, but in the interest of the truth, why not equally condemn the Israeli army for shooting dead around 1,500 teenage Palestinians for throwing stones!

All people who have a genuine desire to see peace in the Middle East know that Israel must get out of Arab land as requested in numerous UN resolutions.

The list of Israeli atrocities in the Occupied Territories are too many to list here but anyone who cares can find out from the Foreign and Commonwealth Department the true extent of these barbaric acts.

That is exactly what I did.- H Pender, Darlington.

WARM HOMES

WE will soon mark the end of NEA/British Gas Warm Homes Week, the annual campaign to cut winter deaths and reduce the number of cold-related illnesses that afflict poor and vulnerable households.

Warm Homes Week alerts the public to the dangers of living in cold, damp homes and the energy efficiency grant aid available to people on low incomes. Warm Homes Week highlights the need for greater investment in energy efficiency programmes to help put an end to the misery of cold homes and the worry of high fuel bills.

Those who take action to improve the energy efficiency of their homes are not only helping themselves, they are contributing to a better environment through lower CO2 emissions; to job creation in the heating and insulation industries; and to reduced costs for the NHS, which spends more than £1bn each year treating cold-related illnesses.

That is why we are urging people to investigate Warm Front, the Government-backed energy efficiency scheme for people on low incomes. A call to freephone 0800 952 0600 could be the first step to a warmer winter. - William Gillis, Chief Executive, National Energy Action, Newcastle upon Tyne.