THE director of Banks Mining was on the money in his piece (Echo, Feb 3) where he described the carbon hypocrisy that is rife in the UK today.

It is farcical that anti-coal campaigners are actively opposing coal mining in the North-East, which has a far less carbon footprint than the alternative of hauling it half away across the globe – they should be spending their time opposing foreign imports.

There is no way to have a UK steel industry without coal and so we can either help the Australian, US and Russian mining sectors or we can help ours.

Westminster politicians need to stop bowing down to the middle class London extremists and actually listen to their working class voters, who don’t want to be put on the dole.

Mark Aldred, Woodham, Newton Aycliffe.