Brexit is no excuse to drag Britain back to post-war austerity

In response to P Gosling’s letter (“Stop being snowflakes”) may I say, as a committed Remainer, that I don’t claim to be morally superior to Leavers. I have a number of friends who are Leavers and, although I believe they are misguided, I certainly don’t profess any moral superiority and we remain friends.

I was born only a few years after the Second World War (1949) and likewise into a home with no central heating and an outside toilet, no fridge, no TV, no washing machine, no car, etc... I also lived through the periods of high inflation and mortgage rates so please don’t call me a snowflake.

To say that Remainers told bigger lies than the Leave campaign is a huge lie in itself. Nobody predicted World War Three but surely it is a good thing to cooperate with our neighbours rather than fight them? Nobody said that the stock market would crash and there would be mass unemployment but the predicted adverse effect on the economy is already evident even before we have left.

As someone who has lived through the same things as your contributor I am very much aware of all the advantages we have gained from our membership of the European Union and have no desire to return to the bad old days described.

Paul McDermott
Lichfield

Like P Gosling, I too experienced post-war austerity and I know all about food rationing, outside toilets and the lack of central heating, fridges, TVs, cars etc. However, I’m blowed if we are going to have to undergo such conditions again as a consequence of this daft Brexit idea. Are we destined to become the first nation to go backwards from “developed” status to “undeveloped”? I hope not, for our children’s sake.

Sam Boote
Nottingham

P Gosling of Edinburgh seems not to realise that a great many Remain voters are from a similar era to him/herself and object to being called “snowflakes”. We also lived through the times of hardship that he/she did and we voted Remain in order not to live through them again. We don’t want to return to the Seventies.

Pat Harty
Kingswood

The arguments over Brexit are not about winning or losing – they are about the facts

Your correspondent P Gosling is yet another in a long line of Brexiteers who calls Remainers “the snowflake generation” and harps on about accepting the “democratic result” of the referendum, which is rather missing the point. In order for a democracy to function properly, it is necessary that the people be appraised of all of the available facts. Despite this, it remains true to this day that our elected Government blankly refuses to make public the findings of any of the (taxpayer funded) studies that it commissioned into the likely effects of Brexit. One may question why that is but it is plainly more to do with party political interests than it is to do with the interests of the country.

I was a child of the seventies, so I didn’t have things so hard as P Gosling recalls enduring as a Second World War baby; nonetheless, despite my relatively younger years, perhaps age has dulled my memory, for I am quite sure that I can recall a time when our elected representatives put the wellbeing of the nation ahead of the interests of their own parties. Sadly, if that ever were the case, it’s an age long gone now.

The point of the Brexit issue that many Brexitheads seem to be missing is that discontent over the referendum result isn’t to do with having won or lost – this isn’t some game or a mere opinion poll (although, in truth, an opinion poll is all that referendum ever should have been), it’s concerned with the future of the economy and the future of our nation as a whole: it reshapes and reconfigures the world that our children will grow up in. To sabotage all that Britain is today and weaken our place in the world for the sake of bigotry and jingoistic pride is foolish in the extreme and yet one suspects that this “victory” over sense and reason is being treated as a last hurrah by a generation already comfortably settled in the departure lounge.

Alas, while there is still some hope that we might reconsider the path that we have set out upon, I suspect that the ingrained superiority complex which seems to colour our national psyche may now lead us to taking an inevitable pratfall over a metaphorical cliff edge. Land of hope and glory? Not for very much longer, I fear.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes

Teachers must be trained to deal with children’s medical conditions

A million children with medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma and epilepsy are at risk because schools don’t know what to do in an emergency, or how to include them safely in all aspects of school life.

Nine in 10 schools in England could not show they had a policy in place to help teachers and other school staff to care for a child with a serious medical condition. This means they may not provide training on how to administer lifesaving medication, such as insulin for type 1 diabetes, or on what to do when someone has an epileptic seizure.

The reason behind this, is that schools are either not aware of the law, or do not understand what it means for them in practice.

This poses a serious threat to children’s health, and even puts their lives at risk. It stops them from accessing the same opportunities as their peers, by excluding them from activities, or preventing them from sitting exams because of their conditions.

Being discriminated against can ruin children’s chances for academic achievement and hinder personal growth. It is also distressing for parents, who are forced to fight every day to secure basic rights for their children, some going as far as giving up work to care for them in school.

On 23 October we are presenting a petition started by one parent whose child suffered from lack of support, and backed by almost 50,000 people. The petition calls on the minister for children and families to take action – now – to ensure schools have a medical conditions policy. Getting this right will help children with long-term medical conditions thrive in school, and could save a life.

Health Conditions in School Alliance

Maybe it’s time Brexiteers started listening to the experts

Have I missed something? All the forecasts and figures (apart from those on that infamous bus) seem to warn of a disastrous Brexit. Yet hardline Brexiteers continue to insist that it won’t be that bad. We know that they “don’t trust experts” but surely they should be challenged to produce some concrete evidence in support of their “vision”? Failure to do so is not democracy. It is a shameful abuse of it.

Richard Greenwood
Bewdley