LETTERS

Short-sighted EU

THIS is the humble opinion and voice of a worried European about the disaster of Brexit.

Allowing Brexit to happen does not address the causes of people’s discontent and exposes a lack of statesmanship. The announcement of Brexit should have been the cue for EU politicians to scrutinise the workings of their institutions and ask why the British voted to leave.

Achieving Brexit will take a lot of money, effort and dedication. But there has been no self-examination from the EU that might have helped to convince the British to remain, without loss of face.

It is a similar story at a national level in Europe. After the most recent elections in the Netherlands and France, the governments of those countries were so relieved populist parties did less well than expected, they went straight back to business as usual, rather than wondering why there had been so much support for those parties in the first place.

The Continent’s so-called leaders have shown real small-mindedness and little imagination. Europe without the United Kingdom cannot be considered Europe.

Please, in the interests of us all, let us have less selfish, short- term thinking from our governments. JOSEPH VAN OUDENHOVEN,

Netherlands.

Welfare in a state

LABoUr MP Frank Field nailed it in Parliament on Tuesday, talking about his constituents’ problems with Universal Credit and, in doing so, reducing Conservative MP Heidi Allen to tears.

The level of pain caused by welfare reform is horrendous. other Tory MPs should show the same compassion as Ms Allen and work to fix, postpone or scrap Universal Credit.

Far too many disabled and terminally-ill people stand to lose thousands of pounds under these reforms. Carers and those who rent their homes will also unfairly lose out. Let’s have reform that works for the many, not the few!

GARY MARTIN, London E17.

Obama’s wrong on women

I’M AFrAId I don’t agree with former U. S. President Barack obama’s sweeping statement about women bosses.

Some may be good, but I find many MPs and the female chief executives of NHS trusts, charities, universities and quangos useless, demanding, egotistical and greedy.

MARY WIEDMAN, Hemel Hempstead, Herts.

Fire horror

IF EVIL people did deliberately start the fire at a stables in Burnham, Essex, in which 15 horses died, they deserve to be severely punished. The only good thing is that so many kind people offered shelter and rugs for the 50 horses left traumatised.

WENDY KEELAN, London SW16.

No thanks, Richard!

I ENJoY richard Littlejohn’s column, but his threat to go genderfluid and appear in the next naked WI calendar (Mail) fills me with dread. Please, keep writing — but anything but that!

KEVAN JAMES, Rochester, Kent.

Clean up Westminster

I rEAd that Labour peer Lord Bassam, who is raking in a total salary of £ 99,903, has agreed to pay back £41,000 in expenses — no doubt another example of an innocent ‘ mistake’ so prevalent in Westminster.

I am reminded that around 400 MPs and a large number of peers were implicated in the 2009 expenses scandal, but most got away with it and are still in Westminster.

Any normal person who fiddled their expenses would be sacked, taken to court and lose their professional qualification, but the Westminster club lives by different rules.

The office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, currently held by career civil servant Kathryn Hudson, is toothless because it is part of that club.

It should be replaced by a watchdog with no ties to politicians, civil servants or the media.

Until all cheating, jailbird and chancer MPs and peers are sacked en masse, the Palace of Westminster will be held in contempt. JOHN M. DUNKIN, FRICS,

London W11.

Rail utopia

I doN’T travel on trains often. recently, though, my wife and I travelled from Prague in the Czech republic to Budapest, Hungary, by rail, a journey of some 400 km.

The train was clean, on time and cost 40 euros for two of us, one-way.

FRANK BUSBY, Evesham, Worcs.

Quiet, please

MANY mainline railway companies plan to abolish ‘quiet’ carriages.

And there’s me, and no doubt many others, wishing that Transport for London would introduce them, giving passengers a bit of peace from their relentless stream of announcements!

PETE WILLIAMS, Hayes, Middx. ASKINg people to be quiet in the ‘quiet’ carriages on trains has to be the simplest challenge on Earth.

If train operators are to scrap them, it will surely be impossible to succeed with the bigger challenges of reversing climate change and eradicating plastic pollution in our oceans, not to mention terrorism.

In short, if we can’t persuade a handful of people to respect the peace and tranquilly — an escape from the

rat race — offered by quiet carriages, humankind is well on the road to extinction. allan raMSaY, radcliffe, gtr Manchester.

No time to be PC

I USeD to be a starter for swimming races. there were some 40 events to get through in two hours, so no time to name all the competitors.

I used to announce that the event was the ‘Girls under-12 one- length freestyle or butterfly’. If I’d had to say ‘Girls and Boys that feel they are Girls or those that have not made up their mind yet under-12 one length freestyle or butterfly’, it’d take all day! DereK traYler, hornchurch, essex.

Disaster recalled

I DO remember the Lewisham train crash (Letters) and have thought about it on and off over the past 60 years.

Our elderly next-door neighbour’s son, their only child, was killed in the accident, and I can remember them coming round to see us and sitting there all shrunken, with grief and tears in their eyes.

the memory has stayed with me ever since, and I went on to commute on the train to London myself from tunbridge Wells in Kent along this same route.

In those days, we did not have wall- to- wall news coverage of such events and we ourselves did not have a tV, either.

But it was the couple’s quiet dignity and the memory that has stayed with me. I was only ten at the time.

MiranDa DaviS, Chichester, w. Sussex.