Readers' letters - April 9

We certainly need a new European Union referendum, as the truth about Brexit is beginning to dawn upon people.

Brexit means cutting ourselves off from our main export market, cutting our nose to spite our face.

Brexit will mean that everyone in Britain will be worse off financially.

Car firms and other major industries will move from Britain to mainland Europe with thousands of job losses – Jaguar Land Rover is already planning its new car in Austria.

The north of England will be especially hard hit by job losses.

The farming industry will be hard hit with the loss of workers from Eastern Europe and this will mean a steep rise in food prices for everyone.

The NHS will be badly damaged as we lose European doctors and nurses.

British universities will lose important income from young people with high skills no longer coming to study in Britain.

Even the City of London is already losing hundreds of jobs – key financial workers – to Frankfurt and Paris.

Hoping to find new export markets elsewhere in the world is pie in the sky.

Brexit, especially a hard Brexit, will be by far the worst decision by any British Government of any political colour since the Second World War.

Mike Pearson

Hothersall

sport

Penalties don’t guarantee goals

Football managers have a habit of being inconsistent with their comments.

We read on many occasions how a penalty decision was the turning point in a game.

A penalty may or may not have been awarded but the manager protests his case and perhaps turns his wrath on the referee.

Should the game have been televised then the pundits will also join in.

Penalties do not guarantee goals!

How often do we hear a manager say that the missing of a penalty was the turning point in a game?

I would suggest never.

Alex Neil said: “I don’t think the penalty miss was the biggest factor in the game because that happens”.

Do he really mean that, when he goes on to say about Chris Maxwell, “I don’t think he should get beaten from that distance”?

No blame is attached to the penalty-taker but the goalkeeper gets both barrels.

There is an irony about this because in the game at Derby, PNE lost by the only goal which was a penalty and another penalty has contributed to PNE losing a home game at the hands of Derby.

Chris Barwise

Ashton

Russia

No proof about attack

Mrs May has no proof that the chemical attack on the Skripals came from Russia.

She has made a very serious accusation against Russia which has no concrete foundation.

What she should do is remember her Christian upbringing and work to establish good relations with Russia.

We should form more trade links with Russia.

We should encourage holiday visits there and encourage the Russians to visit us.

Mrs May should never have cut short bilateral talks. We should have more cultural exchanges: art exhibitions, Shakespeare and the Bolshoi Ballet. We should work together on scientific research and on space travel.

If Mrs May cannot bring herself to do these things, then I’m sure Boris Johnson, pictured, would. I was impressed by his friendly meeting, shown on television with the Russian Foreign Minister. Mrs May is too intense and dramatic. Boris Johnson is good-natured and generous. Mrs May should retire and hand over to him as soon as possible. Now her rotten foreign policy has brought us to the brink of war, she should look to Boris Johnson to save the nation from ruin and build up our foreign relationships.

Julie Dixon

Chorley

health service

NHS is its own worst enemy

Once again the cry goes up for more money for the NHS.

The NHS is a black hole with little control over its spending. It suffers from all the weaknesses and inefficiencies that blighted the gas, electricity and phone monopolies before they were privatised.

It’s not a surprise that no other country has a health service like ours, with most relying on a mix of state aid and private insurance. It is its own worst enemy, with practices that no efficient private company would tolerate.

It allows itself to be ripped off by the big pharmaceutical companies and the ratio of managers and pen pushers is out of all proportion to the number of clinical staff.

MPs are demanding a major inquiry into the NHS.

Patients and the hard-working staff deserve no less.

Harry Brooke

Address supplied