LETTERS

Write to: Daily Mail Letters, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT email: letters@dailymail.co.uk Shipwrecked

Jeremy COrByN has said the moD contract to build royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels should be awarded to domestic shipyards such as Govan in Glasgow to secure local jobs, and not be given to a foreign shipyard on purely commercial grounds.

However, he has no compunction in advocating the destruction of english jobs in Barrow- in- Furness by planning to cancel Trident.

I have worked in the shipping industry for decades and wish I could agree with mr Corbyn that these vessels should be built in the UK. However, the UK shipbuilding and ship repair industry has been in decline since the Seventies.

This is due to out-of-date facilities, poor management, militant trades unions, poor product quality, increasing dependence on non-commercial government contracts, and government investments and subsidies being made for political reasons instead of commercial ones.

The same situation was afflicting the car industry in the Seventies, but it was transformed by Nissan and Toyota. New car plants were built, Japanese management techniques introduced and co- operation achieved with non-militant unions. The UK now produces some of the best quality and most competitively priced cars in the world.

The shipbuilding industry needed a similar shake-up 25 years ago, but now it may be too late.

JIM WEEDON, Haltwhistle, Northumberland.

Project Fear lives on

reADer Dr roy Harvey laments the non-representation of remainer views (Letters). How has he missed the never-ending onslaught of these views since the referendum?

It has been a relentless tirade from every luvvie and Left-wing hardliner denigrating and insulting the 17.4 million Leavers.

Project Fear is still being voiced by failed politicos agitating to thwart the democratic vote and force a new referendum to get the result that they want. SARAH CARTLIDGE,

address supplied. WHere are the views of the 16.14 million remain voters represented? In the Cabinet.

Theresa may’s policy is to maintain a balance between Leave and remain Tory factions; it is no wonder that division, dissent and threats are an everyday occurrence.

There will be no improvement until we have a Prime minister with the courage to truly accept the referendum result and act accordingly. MICHAEL ASHWORTH, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.

Stop popping pills

AS A former hospital chief pharmacist, I’ve seen many cases of patients being admitted to hospital due to over- enthusiastic prescribing and self-medication, as described by Dr James Le Fanu (mail).

I regularly speak to groups such as rotary and Probus clubs, the WI and the University of the Third Age about this problem. I start off with a light- hearted talk about people putting suppositories up their nose or spraying their dog with inhalers to deal with their own pet hair allergy.

But I end with a serious case I dealt with concerning an 83-year- old on more than 20 pills. We stopped all his medication and he became a new man within a week.

It took care and attention, and hospital is the best place to attempt such a dramatic action, but it was well worth it. STEPHEN FREEBORN, Bolton, Gtr Manchester.

Freedom to criticise

IT IS unfair to criticise the United Nations envoy on her race disparity audit of the UK (mail).

The UN carries out such surveys only in countries where it is allowed to enter, has the freedom to operate and talk to whom it wishes and can do its work without fear of intimidation or harm.

So that rather limits the countries the UN is willing to inspect. JAMES WIGNALL, Accrington, Lancs.

Clean dream team

my TWO sons and I took part in the mail’s Great Plastic Pick Up along two local main roads. We collected 11 bags of rubbish in two hours, which we took to a recycling centre.

We picked up plastic bottles, cups, straws, DVDs, bags, cartons, food wrappers, parts of car bumpers, drinks cans, polystyrene, gloves, paper and cardboard, tissues, mcDonald’s packaging (there is a restaurant a mile away), electrical cables, dozens of cigarette packets and a half-used tin of paint.

MARGARET EDGE, Worksop, Notts. ON ONe page of the mail were lookat-me luvvies in their swanky frocks at the Baftas. On another were salt-of-the- earth volunteers helping to make our nation a cleaner place in the Great Plastic Pick Up. I know who I prefer! GRAHAM ANDREWS,

Bideford, Devon.

Beware of Big Sister

mOST volunteers like me who administer small not- for- profit groups act responsibly to safeguard, record and maintain the accuracy of the personal details of members.

Up to now, this has not been a problem, even with Big Brother knowing more about us than we know about ourselves.

Now we have Big Sister: Information Commissioner elizabeth Denham and the General Data Protection regulation (GDPr) that supposedly gives citizens more control over their personal data.

We have got our house in order. It’s time the Government does the same before launching an unnecessary assault on voluntary services. BOB BLACKMAN,

Fareham, Hants.

Greedy grazers

INSTeAD of banning adverts for junk food, we should ban the bad habit of eating and drinking on the go. I see too many people eating a Cornish pasty at 10am, drinking a large coffee

at 10.30am, scoffing pick ’n’mix at 11am and slurping ice cream at 11.30am before deciding where they will have lunch.

The seagulls are delighted and dive-bomb all day long.

s. DaviEs, Truro, Cornwall. QUEUING to buy my newspaper, I see secondary pupils on their way to school buying armfuls of fizzy drinks, crisps and sweets, paying with a debit card.

Parents who give their children a bank card have to take some responsibility for the obesity crisis. Name supplied, Reading, Berks.

100 pc mortgage

THE 100 per cent mortgage should not be blamed for the financial crash (Mail).

Working in home loans, I knew the industry needed reforming, but not too drastically. I always thought the Northern Rock 125 per cent mortgages were silly, and selfcertification was as bad.

But as long as you kept up payments, the 100 per cent mortgage worked. Negative equity is only relevant if you have to vacate the property. I have lived in my home for decades with the value going up and down, as well as interest rates. I took out a mortgage at 8.75 per cent, rising to 15 per cent and dropping to 6.5 per cent, when I thought I was in clover.

The problem has always been finding the deposit and lenders giving too many multiples of income.

The 100 per cent mortgage could be the way forward, as long as brokers stick by the rules and don’t let the commission influence them in an undue way.

iaN vERDON, Watford, Herts. IF THE mortgage companies were controlled to prevent reckless lending, house prices would stagnate or fall, bringing a more affordable market.

Why don’t politicians and economists introduce legislation that will stop the boom and bust housing market and put home ownership within the reach of the majority?

PHiLiP DEY, Manchester.

Brakes on ‘progress’

BMW says it’s powerless to stop keyless models being vulnerable to thieves. Car makers should think more about ‘improvements’.

My VW Passat has so many functions it requires a 400page manual. I don’t know what half are for and have driven thousands of miles in blissful ignorance. It’s simply more things to go wrong.

W. THORNE, ilkley, W. Yorks.

Just not cricket

THE boy hit by a cricket ball brought back a memory that makes me shudder.

I had taken my four-year-old son Paul to watch a match between a local team and Sunderland football club. At the wicket was Brian Clough who let fly with a ball heading straight at my son’s face.

I managed to push him face down to the ground. If the ball had hit him, goodness knows what may have happened.

a. MiTCHEsON, sunderland.