Readers' letters - July 24

What are the benefits of the EU? We believe it is about having a community of nearby nations where we can easily travel, live, work and form relationships without any barriers.

It seems sad to us that a generation of older people, who mostly won’t be around to witness the fallout of a ‘hard’ Brexit, wishes to deny all these things to subsequent generations of younger people.

The EU also provides a trading bloc which can negotiate trade and other deals, such as that signed this week with Japan, and is strong enough to stand up to the bullying tactics of Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia.

A more practical reason for staying with the EU is that, for nearly 50 years, we have built up close relations in a large number of areas – research, science, medicine, culture, education and, of course, trade.

This can’t just be undone in one bound, despite what wealthy demagogues like Johnson and Rees-Mogg, whose hedge funds stand to benefit from a bad Brexit, will tell you. It will take years to set up equivalent trade deals and links with other (mostly far-off) countries, always assuming anyone else actually wants to trade with us.

We would also like to ask Brexit voters what they actually mean by ‘taking back control’?

Does it mean handing it over to the bunch of incompetent, self-serving politicians (whether far left or right) we currently have in Westminster? Or is it, in our desperation to secure a trade deal of any kind, sucking up to the likes of Donald Trump, who will happily sell us chlorinated chicken, hormone-injected beef, and buy up our impoverished NHS at a knock-down price?

It is all too easy to blame the EU, which accounts for less than one per cent of our tax contributions, for all our problems.

For those that seek to do so, we would ask them one final question. Forgetting all the propaganda they have read in the right wing press, or stories they may have heard about EU bureaucracy, floods of immigrants etc, for a moment, can they actually point to a single way in which they, or someone they know, have been directly adversely affected by being a member of the EU?

Steve and Janet Hogger

via email

guild wheel

Selfish and dangerous

The selfish and downright dangerous behaviour of some cyclists on Preston’s Guild Wheel is astonishing.

Last Friday, July 13, a middle-aged man in white Lycra gear nearly ran over me and my pram near the Continental, after coming racing up behind me without warning.

When my partner asked why he didn’t have a bell, he was met with a four-letter torrent of abuse.

I was taking a walk to take a break from planning a funeral – I can only hope the cyclist reads this and is ashamed of himself.

Thanks to the runner who came over to check we were okay and point out what an idiot the cyclist was.

Fed Up Walker

Broadgate

parking

Our car was damaged

On Tuesday, July 17, my husband and I thought we would go for a walk to Hoghton Bottoms.

We parked on Chapel Lane, next to the graveyard, and continued on our walk.

Beautiful scenery, lots of wildlife.

We saw a fish stair constructed for the fish migration on the river.

We were gone for about two hours.

When we came back to our car at about 1.30pm, we noticed a deep scratch on the front passenger side of our Ford Focus estate car. The Ford in front also had a scratch on the side.

We don’t know who did this but the souls in the graveyard do.

Be careful where you park on Chapel Lane as whoever did this could do it again.

Irene Wymott

Hoghton

books

Memories of another Hartley

The Preston-born A J Hartley, pictured, mentioned in today’s Lancashire Post brings to mind another Hartley (LP July 16).

Was this one a writer on fishing?

Walking the hospital wards with the WRVS book trolley, many male patients – now with their health improving and with a good sense of humour – would inquire: “Have you a book written by J R Hartley?”

Bursts of laughter always followed by many, including myself.

Laughter is infectious.

I wonder if this present author brings memories of the past J R Hartley?

It does to me, of – “Get well, male patients”!

And no, I didn’t have any books by J R Hartley!

Mrs Joan Hardcastle

Fulwood

energy

No smart move with this meter

SMART meters!

Great for the giant German (and other) electronic conglomerates, rubbish for UK householders and no more than entry level snooping.

Everyone has a right to refuse one in their home.

I think smart meters are dodgy territory and, according to the latest figures, they are destined to save no more than a microscopic £11 per year/per household and far less than the claimed saving of £35 per annum secured apparently by quenching a TV’s standby red LED.

Smart meters?

To me, they are no more than ‘a confidence trick’.

Joseph G Dawson

Chorley