LETTERS

Debacle of a TV debate

I WAS appalled at the degeneration of what should have been a fair, balanced TV election debate into mud- slinging and party leaders shouting each other down. No wonder Theresa May chose not to be subjected to this belittling behaviour.

This general election should not be about emotional responses to issues, but instead about addressing the wider long-term issues affecting our country.

Sadly, there are too many political parties playing to the crowd and promising all sorts of things that are financially unsustainable.

RHOD TIBBLES, Norwich.

THERESA MAY can refuse to turn up to defend her record during a TV debate against Jeremy Corbyn and the other British party leaders.

But if she is too nervous to face them, how can she negotiate Brexit with 27 EU leaders? CHRISTOPHER CLAYTON,

Waverton, Cheshire. WE HAVE a word in Northern Ireland that best describes the BBC TV debate — gutterworry.

Seven politicians talking each other down; an audience that only wanted to hear Left- wing views and so laughed and booed at the others; and a presenter who lost control of the situation.

Excellent judgment by Theresa May not to attend.

CORA RITCHIE, Cookstown, Co. Tyrone.

IF THERE had been political balance among the members of the audience, we might have expected to hear cheers and applause for both Left and Right-wing views.

But Amber Rudd’s comments were received by stony silence, while Jeremy Corbyn’s disciples whooped and cheered every time he opened his mouth.

TONY EDWARDS, Ockham, Surrey. WHY did the TV debate feature Plaid Cymru and the SNP, when they are not fielding a candidate outside Wales and Scotland? They should be confined to regional TV, as their input merely wastes the time available to the national parties.

PAUL GILBERT, Solihull, W. Mids.

Endless pledges

LABOUR is promising a nationalised Utopia funded by the rich paying ‘a little more’, homeowners forking out for a garden tax and businesses and banks coughing up the rest. Brexit, they say with a shrug, is settled.

When businesses have departed, bankers moved out and the rich have shifted their assets abroad, a mess has been made of Brexit and no one wants to invest in Britain any more, who will Labour tax then?

Labour has successfully changed the focus of the election from Brexit and the economy to endless pledges. You can promise what you like, Mr Corbyn, but you can’t deliver.

LIZ WOOD, Fareham, Hants.

Deal or no deal?

THERESA MAY says: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal.’

Jeremy Corbyn says: ‘We will get a deal regardless.’ Confused or what? We know what a Brexit without a deal looks like: Britain reverts to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The EU, under WTO rules, is a nasty place to export to. It has high tariffs and restrictive rules.

However, most of the rest of the world is not as anti-trade.

At present, as a member of the EU, Britain is not allowed to make its own trade deals with other countries.

If, as the Conservatives are trying to do, Britain can make free trade deals with many of the fastest growing countries outside the EU once Brexit is complete, then huge gains await — gains that are hindered by EU membership.

The EU must offer us a better deal than WTO rules, or we may as well walk away without a deal.

Many EU states are struggling. Once Britain, the second highest financial contributor, has left, the future for Europe looks bleak.

The longer we wait for a deal, the weaker the EU’s position becomes.

TONY TAYLOR, Woodthorpe, N. Yorks.

Puppy love

I CAN understand John Noakes’s emotions at the death of Shep. When I first married, we had a pup called Kim, who would climb up and hang around my neck while I read the paper. Sadly, she was run over.

We got our next dog, Lucky, when we had just started our family and she greeted everyone with a wagging tail.

When the weather was fine, my wife would put the pram in the front garden and Lucky would lie in front of it — no one would get past the front gate. Sadly, after 15 years we had to have her put down.

Our next dog was a rough collie, Kim 2. How she sensed this we do not know, but when I was due home on leave, she would set up camp at the front door and was always the first to greet me.

Again, after 15 years, we had to have her put down. We have a framed sketch of her and every time I pass it I feel sad and miss her terribly.

With a dog, your love will be rewarded ten times over.

BRIAN McAVOY, Blackpool, Lancs.

Shareholders duped

AS A RBS small shareholder, I take issue with being called a ‘greedy chancer’ by Peter Oborne (Mail).

Nearly ten years ago, we did not invest ‘foolishly’. Instead, we were duped, having been told we were funding further expansion of a massively successful bank. We were not told its pockets were empty.

I live on my savings’ interest and dividends, and Fred Goodwin and his bunch of RBS clowns decimated the value of my shares by 95 per cent. With a pension of £ 342,500 per annum, Goodwin’s own finances have not been affected by his professional recklessness.

Since 2008, RBS has been paying directors their pensions and has given out bumper bonuses.

It has also incurred more than £100 million in legal fees fighting shareholders’ rightful claims for recompense. If the directors had held their hands up, declared mea

culpa and paid us what we are entitled to without a fight, it would have been far cheaper. JONATHAN PALMER, Rotherham, S. Yorks.

Scrap free lunches

i AGree with theresa May’s proposal to scrap free school lunches.

times were very hard when i was a young mum bringing up two daughters, but i never thought it was the job of the state to feed them.

Why have children if you can’t afford to keep them? Knowing how to cook from scratch instead of relying on ready meals would be a start.

Mrs E. M. HARRIES, Cardiff. tV COOK thomasina Miers says that if Mrs May was a mother, she wouldn’t stop free school meals.

Margaret thatcher was a mother, but that didn’t stop her axing free school milk. MARIE WILLIAMS,

Totton, Hants.

Word on the street

SinCe we stopped having bobbies on the beat and moved to Panda cars, the police have drifted away from their purpose: protection of life and property.

Beats were once covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with each officer handing over to a colleague every eight hours, so there was no break in the cover.

With neighbours and shopkeepers reporting their suspicions to the local bobby, who is to say that the insurgents in our midst would not be discovered before they had the chance to detonate their bombs? But that would require large numbers of highly trained constables — another thing from the past. DENNIS WOOD, Manchester.

Real poverty

tOrY MP Dominic raab has been castigated for saying that many people who go to food banks are not languishing in poverty. My daughter used to help out as a volunteer at a food bank and was perplexed at the large number of people who, while waiting for it to open, were busy looking at their smartphones and smoking. Perhaps we need a clearer definition of what poverty means and to what extent personal responsibility comes into overcoming it. ALAN CARTER, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Sinking feeling

i WAS disappointed that Alan Smith sees shipyards as one of the places that 11-plus ‘ failures’ were destined to work (letters).

My privately educated husband went to the Wallsend Slipway & engineering Company for a four- year apprenticeship that included college classes on mechanics, physics, technical drawing, chemistry and maths. he later travelled the world fixing ships and power stations.

it seems that his calibre of engineer no longer exists, as men in dirty overalls are undervalued. NORMA SMITH, Hull, E. Yorks.