Hear All Sides

GENERAL ELECTION

WILL Tony Blair, during the General Election campaign, visit his great legacy, that testament to and symbol of New Labour, the Millennium Dome?

"The Dome will be the first paragraph of Labour's next Election manifesto." These were the words of Tony Blair. Yet another broken promise from a Government which arrogantly squandered millions of our money on a project we did not want.

Why should New Labour be trusted to run our schools, hospitals and police for the next five years, when it couldn't run a tourist attraction for one year? - MJ Fishwick, Durham City.

IF politicians want to attract attention of the largely bored and disinterested population as we head towards the General Election, they should stop all the stunts - photo calls with misty eyed schoolgirls and use of high tech stage effects (Echo, May 11) and just speak the plain, simple truth.

No constant accusations of everything under the sun against the opposing parties and character assassinations. All the people want to hear is a clear, unspun declaration of what each party promises to do if elected.

Sadly, from past experience, everyone knows this is like asking for the moon, so it will never happen. - EA Moralee, Billington.

LABOUR'S promises not to raise the basic or higher rates of income tax. Yet single people and married couples without children are worse off. The Labour Party made the same promise in 1997. The people will not be fooled again, Tony, in the next election on June 7th. - DT Murray, Coxhoe.

THE Tories' latest plea to voters is "don't trust Labour on taxes."

They have short memories of course - remember 1992 - their pledge not to raise taxes if re-elected. After six months in government they wanted to put 17 per cent on domestic fuel.

A party that gave the country the cruel poll tax where a Lord and a Lady living in a mansion would pay the same as a couple living in a small flat.

Hague has just announced a Tory government would cut the price of petrol by six pence per litre.

To help pay for this hike they would abolish the over sixties and pensioners £200 winter fuel allowance - £10 Christmas bonus - and take away free television licences from the over 75s.

He would also scrap the new deal and put thousands of teenagers out of work. Hague said recently that tax perks would be given to the wealthy. Once again the less well off families will suffer as under Tory rule many families would just manage to survive. - JL Thompson, Crook.

WE will soon have the General Election and if the opinion polls are correct, and they usually are to a few percentage points, we will see Mr Blair triumph over Mr Hague.

The Tories are acutely aware of how far behind they are in the polls and you can be sure they will become much more extreme and hysterical as June 7 gets closer.

They want to put all asylum seekers in jail, have nothing to do with Europe, covertly play the race card and hold local annual ballots on the council tax. Does it ever occur to them the cost of these ballots will increase the council tax.

If they take 6p off the petrol costs the oil companies will simply put it back on again. Mr Hague and his shadow cabinet are running around in ever decreasing circles. - H Pender, Darlington.

AS a 46-year-old man who is registered disabled due to heart and back problems you can imagine my joy when I received an increase of £2.50 to my incapacity benefit during April representing an increase of just over three per cent.

Prior to this I paid no council tax, no rent and because my income was so low I had an HC2 certificate which meant that I did not have to pay for my prescriptions. This also gave me free dental treatment and free sight tests with a full voucher towards the cost of glasses.

Sadly our prudent Chancellor did not increase the allowances by a similar amount so now I do pay rent £0.94 per week and council tax £0.29 per week; not big sums by any means I grant you.

Then I applied for my HC2 certificate, only to discover I no longer qualify for free prescriptions; and the cost of buying a pre-payment certificate for my medication works out at £1.84 per week.

Totalled up they come to £3.07. That makes me £0.57 worse off.

Add to this the difference, in cost of the new half fare concessions, 15p per trip to town and back, you begin to see the true cost of New Labour's prudence and the ability of Gordon Brown to make a surplus of £37bn in an election year.

Not only are New Labour masters of spin, they're pretty good at window dressing too. - Name and address supplied.

CANCER RESEARCH

I WOULD encourage you readers to support Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood in our work to ensure the best possible treatment, care and research are provided for children dealing with cancer and leukaemia.

The year 2001 marks CLIC's 25th anniversary year. Over this time we have seen survival rates for all childhood cancers improve from 30 per cent to 70 per cent and the type of care provided develop in hand with the needs of both the children and their families. However, CLIC has a vision - a world in which cancer and leukaemia cease to threaten or impair the lives of children. But this vision is not attainable without your help.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, CLIC is holding a national summer event - the Big CLIC Picnic between June 9-24. The charity would like as many people as possible to hold a picnic for CLIC - whether it be large or small, wacky or sensible, indoors or out - everyone can join in!

It's simple! Just call 0117 311 2630 to register and receive your bumper picnic pack containing a game, fundraising ideas, picnic recipe suggestions, CLIC stickers, balloons and a sponsorship form!

This is a wonderful and rewarding opportunity, not only to help those

children suffering from cancer and leukaemia by providing services and care such as dedicated CLIC nurses and CLIC homes from home, but also to have a fantastic day out. - Gary Lineker, CLIC patron.