Letters

WHILE I unreservedly welcome your initiative in making direct contact with the MPs in our region on the Corus issue (HAS, Mar 12), I am astounded by the cynical hypocrisy of the Conservative contributors.

Anne McIntosh has enough sense to keep her contribution short and to the point. Her colleagues, including her leader William Hague, overlook the fact that the Corus organisation was created by the Conservatives and became a privatised version of what was British Steel.

It was the Conservatives who dismantled our nation's manufacturing base and, by so doing, deprived the steel industry of most of its home markets.

Messrs Hague and Soames should get their act together and agree on the number of manufacturing industry jobs lost since 1997.

Common belief is that unemployment has fallen dramatically since then, as has the crushing burden of our national debt, on which the interest payment alone exceeded our total annual education budget.

These people must think that the UK is populated by cretins with no short-term memory left. I hope that when the election is held, memory of the 18 years prior to May 1997 will return. - Alan Benn, Bedale.

BUS SHELTERS

AS someone who has served as a parish councillor for more than 30 years, I was perturbed to read your report (Echo, Mar 8) that Richmondshire District Council intends to ask parish councils to take on the responsibility for bus shelters later this year.

The district council has always been responsible for bus shelters and maintenance and cleaning has been paid for from their council tax income. Giving the responsibility to parishes means that parish precepts will have to rise which, in turn, means the council tax payer will be paying twice for this service.

The system of paying for our local services needs an urgent critical review. - Ken Redhead, Vice Chairman, Catterick Parish Council.

THE POUND

HOW encouraging it is to hear that British exports rose by 12 per cent last year to a record £187bn - underlining the stability we have achieved by staying outside the Eurozone.

Despite the weakness of the euro during 2000, British businesses have performed well and our trade gap with the rest of the EU has fallen to its lowest level for almost 20 years.

Britain has continued to attract more inward investment than France and Germany combined and take-home pay in Britain is now among the highest in the EU. This good news blows apart the scare stories put about by supporters of the euro. Exports and investment in Britain have risen because Britain is the best place in the EU to do business.

Unemployment in Britain is almost half the Eurozone average but in Germany, the number of jobless has been rising for the last two months. By replacing the pound with the euro, we risk undermining Britain's current success by returning to boom and bust. Locked into the euro, we would be exposed to the economic problems of the Eurozone, including their bankrupt state pensions systems, and we would be forced to accept the one-size-fits-all interest rate set by the European Central Bank. However, before this can be done, people will have their say in a referendum and opinion polls consistently show that over two thirds of the public and businesses are opposed to replacing the pound. They understand the benefits of keeping control of our economy. - John Elliott, Chairman, Business for Sterling North-East.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

IT ill behoves Peter Mullen (Echo, Mar 6) to complain about what the Taliban are allegedly doing to Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.

After all, they are only doing what Peter Mullen's church did in the mid-16th Century. Fountains Abbey, Glastonbury, Bury St Edmunds, Much Wenlock and others are not in the state they are in because of the English climate.

Given the opportunity, one religion will do that to another. In 500 years not much has changed.

Mr Mullen quotes Nelson Mandela verbatim - could we have a source?

Perhaps he merely quoted an obvious truth - that a black man can lie as much as a white man, and colour makes no difference. But the white man before Mandela had all the economic power in South Africa, just as he has today in Zimbabwe.

Nearly a quarter century ago, a revolution occurred in Zimbabwe but the lot of the black man has little changed because he has not yet taken back the land which was expropriated by the white man about 100 years ago.

President Mugabe does not want to lose white farmers or any other whites that can contribute - he could have done that long ago, but he does want a fairer distribution of land ownership, and white farmers will have to get used to that. - Willis Collinson, Durham City.

NURSERY SCHOOLS

ONE of the best things about Darlington is that our four children have been able to go to a state nursery school. I was astonished to read that Darlington Council has decided that this service is no longer value for money.

We have been delighted with Eastbourne Nursery School. It is a lively, welcoming place where the children thrive because they feel secure and happy. Our kids have been individually guided by energetic, dedicated teaching staff who are experts in helping three and four-year-old children in their early learning years.

Plans to relocate all young children on to primary school sites will thrust them into a competitive, results-conscious environment.

As parents, we are constantly being told how important it is to make the most of our children's early years. Darlington already offers an excellent nursery service including some of the best ranked schools in the country. These should be cultivated and expanded rather than thrown away just to start again somewhere new. - Susan Dell, Middleton St George.