24/04/2006

BASC is a responsible organisation with 123,000 members and is a representative body for countryside shooting. It has worked with Defra as a major stakeholder and consultant on avian flu for the past year.

We have never recommended that British game farms increase the breeding of gamebirds because of avian flu. We have advised our members to source their birds locally where possible.

Gamebirds do not represent a significant additional risk of spreading avian flu. Any eggs or pheasant chicks imported from Europe during the breeding season are subject to inspections and an EU directive prevents gamebirds and eggs being moved out of an area affected by avian flu.

While in captivity from now until July the birds are monitored for disease.

There has only been one isolated case of H5N1 avian flu in the UK to date. The response should always be proportionate to risk and driven by facts.

Some cynical lobby groups are using avian flu as a means to further their misguided campaign against game shooting and BASC condemns such alarmist and opportunistic scaremongering. - Helen Shuker, Press Officer, BASC, Rossett, Wrexham.

FOREIGN OFFENDERS

I AM disgusted to hear that Home Secretary Charles Clarke has allowed more than 1,000 foreign offenders who were locked up in prison to be released and allowed to walk our streets instead of being deported.

It has emerged that we have foreigners who have been convicted of murder and rape roaming the United Kingdom, and the Government has admitted that it does not know where they are living.

This is just another sham from the Labour Party on their immigration agenda. Not content with allowing hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers to stay here every year, we now have 1,000 convicted foreign criminals wandering our streets.

Mr Clarke has admitted it was a mistake. Hopefully, Tony Blair will yet dismiss him from his post for putting the safety of the public at risk from dangerous individuals, who have no legal right to be able to stay here. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

CRITIC ANSWERED

I FEEL I must correct the statements made by Monica Cummings (HAS, Apr 19).

We are not asking council house tenants to carry out their own repairs. We are proposing not to undertake very minor items - changing a light bulb, for example, and we are examining dispensations for more vulnerable tenants. We are, however, awaiting the outcome of consultation before Cabinet makes its decision.

We have not cut our ability to visit vulnerable people in our City Care system. We have merely restructured the service so that the vulnerable and needy get increased service. It was the Labour Party that made 20 resident wardens redundant.

Regarding the sale of council land, how else do we raise capital to provide new facilities, whether in the city centre or in the villages, other than utilising existing assets? What better way than to use the land in villages to build affordable home for families? Ask the people of Ushaw Moor whether this is wrong. They are leaving Esh Winning behind.

The new swimming pool will have significantly increased public access and will be very appealing to everyone from very young children to the elderly and people with disabilities.

The recent reader survey in Durham City News tells us that the majority of people, 88 per cent, feel that the publication is informative and the results will be fed back to all our residents.

I can't understand how Mrs Cummings gets it so wrong. Perhaps she should talk to Mr Cummings, the local Labour councillor. - Bob Wynn, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, Durham City Council.

IMMIGRATION

IN reply to Bob Jarratt (HAS, Apr 21), immigration has deliberately been put in the public eye by unscrupulous politicians after votes and newspaper editors who think raising the subject will help to sell more copies.

A one-sided story is produced, made up of distortions, myths and half-truths. Figures are spun to cause maximum fear, lurid stories are often made-up, while immigration benefits are kept hidden.

A real debate about immigration would be welcome, as long as all sides are presented fairly. It would be helpful, for instance, for newspapers and politicians to present true figures for emigration, which in many years exceeds immigration. It would also be fairer if recognition was given to the vital services dependent upon immigrant labour.

Blaming outsiders for problems is a long, and generally dishonourable story, going back to the expulsion of the Jews in the late 13th century, through anti-Irish prejudice in Victorian times, even though the Irish were involved in building railways and other great public works, to today's prejudice against asylum seekers - people who have come here to escape persecution.

There are other examples, but one thing binds them together - the fears were unfounded, and in time British society grew and improved because of immigration. - Peter Sagar, Newcastle.

WHOSE MONEY?

ON the current topic of "pounds for peerages" I would like to make this comment. Some people, such as correspondent Tom Blenkinsop (HAS, Mar 24), point out that Tory peers were also donors, but in fact their donations were chicken feed compared to the amount of money ennobled Bill Morris passed to Labour.

During his tenure at the TGWU, the union gave an awesome £20m. So who paid the most for their peerage and, more importantly, whose money was it? Was it from the subscriptions of the ordinary working man? I for one, will not be paying any more subscriptions. - P Robertson, Middlesbrough.

NHS

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt must live in cloud cuckoo land if she thinks this has been a good year for the NHS (Echo, Apr 24). With mass redundancies of frontline staff around the corner, demoralised staff working in the NHS, and a possible strike on her hands, she and Labour need to wake up quickly.

They will never be forgiven by the public if they mishandle this one, and the current situation appears to indicate they are doing just that.

If there is such a financial problem then the only way to correct it is to bring the British troops home from the Labour Party's illegal war in Iraq, thus saving £4bn, and redirecting the money into the NHS to get it back on its feet. - Mark Anderson, Middleton St George.

MULLEN PRAISED

THE Rev Peter Mullen so often comes in for criticism. But his recent column, headed, The high price of freedom, (Echo, Apr 25) deserves only praise. Maybe in the future he will go even further. In case he does not, why not read for yourselves Romans, Chapter 1, verses 26 to 28? It will not take you long. - Rev Ted Spiller, Thirsk.