Letters: You don’t have to wear plum chinos to see a bright future for Britain

SIR – I have read an awful lot about middle-class, London-focused Tory voters proclaiming Boris Johnson’s victory in securing a trade deal with the EU. I am very wary of this outcome being seen as a win for Home County loons in plum chinos and brogues.

As leader of the Conservatives on North Tyneside council, let me rebalance the narrative. We represent an area oft forgotten by Southerners, but I defy anyone to have found a more ardent group of Brexiteers.

The future is bright… the future is red, white and blue.

Cllr Sean Brockbank
Tynemouth, Northumberland

SIR – Sir Keir Starmer says that the Government has agreed a “bad deal” with the EU, but that Labour will vote for it because it is better than “no deal”.

It is worth remembering the deal Jeremy Corbyn said he would seek if elected. This would have kept us in the customs union, unable to trade freely with the rest of the world, and would have retained freedom of movement. Would this, in Sir Keir’s terms, have been “better”?

Ian Todd
Isleworth, Middlesex

SIR – Paragraph 1 of the preamble states that the parties to the agreement reaffirm their commitment to democratic principles. Was the EU having a joke here? In most voters’ views, “EU democracy” constitutes the perfect oxymoron.

David Hutchinson
Nutley, East Sussex

SIR – As we regain our sovereignty, thanks are due to two men who made this possible: David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn. Their decisions (respectively) to call a referendum and to agree to an election led us here.

They may now better understand the law of unintended consequences.

Ron Butcher
Great Dunmow, Essex

SIR – Like many readers, I am delighted that the United Kingdom has formally and finally left the EU. But as a member of the House of Lords since the debates on the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, I am disappointed that no Conservative politician has admitted that without Nigel Farage’s persistence we would never have left the EU.

His leadership of Ukip forced David Cameron into granting a referendum. His formation of the Brexit Party and its crushing victory in the 2019 European Parliament elections forced Theresa May out of Downing Street.

For 23 years I sat on the red benches in the Lords listening to Conservative ministers repeat platitudes in debates on the EU: “Europe is coming our way”; “We will reform Europe from within”. No Conservative minister ever suggested that leaving the EU might be in Britain’s best interests.

I realise that gratitude is not the currency of politics, but it would none the less have been gracious of the Prime Minister to acknowledge the central role of Nigel Farage.

Lord Willoughby de Broke
London SW1

E-scooter circus

SIR – Here in central Canterbury, I have seen e-scooters (Letters, December 26) with two people on being driven along the street. Another was driven one-handed, with the other hand holding a mobile on which the owner was holding a conversation, all while crossing a busy junction. Several scooters at once whizzed round the corner of a busy underpass just as local schools were finishing for the day.

Scooter riders no longer get a second glance. Streets, lanes and pavements are all fair game – and games they are.

So far I haven’t seen a crash helmet or protective clothing being used, or anyone over the age of 25 on one. I fear only serious accidents will put an end to this silly tolerated experiment.

Sue Hillyard
Canterbury, Kent

SIR – It is blindingly obvious, and should be to our legislators, that nothing mechanical going faster than walking pace should be allowed on pavements. The speed at which human beings have been designed to proceed for a million years is also the speed at which the outcome of a collision is likely to be “Oops, sorry”, rather than a visit to hospital.

Those who ride stand-up scooters or cycles on pavements are antisocial and the law should make that clear.

Victor Launert
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

Doctor on the move

SIR – At Queen’s University, Belfast, in the early Sixties, our medieval history lecturer was Dr Lewis Warren. His doctorate (Letters, December 24) had been earned at Exeter College, Oxford, with a thesis on the 14th-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury.

Later, he told the story of travelling to an evening function outside Belfast during the Troubles and being stopped at a roadblock. The UDR corporal looked at the proffered driving licence and quickly told him: “If you’re out this late, Doctor, it must be an emergency. You’d better be on your way.”

Edward Orr
Newbury, Berkshire

Emergency broccoli

SIR – In my local Asda yesterday, crates were piled up with a sign: “Free broccoli”. Did Lufthansa perhaps overdo its emergency humanitarian airlift of fruit and veg to Britain before Christmas when Dover was blocked?

Dr Richard Quinton
Newcastle upon Tyne

Vaccine for some

SIR – I work as a surgeon in the private health-care sector. All my friends and colleagues in the NHS are receiving the Covid vaccination. In the private sector the vaccine has not been made available to any of its workers, despite the fact that many NHS patients are being treated in the private health-care system.

I was unaware that the virus targets NHS staff but not those in private hospitals.

Mark Davies FRCS
Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

SIR – Arthur Ord-Hume (Letters, December 19) is worried about the practicalities of mass Covid immunisation. General practice can take this on.

In October, our annual flu-jab clinic, organised by my redoubtable practice manager, saw the entire staff of the Friary surgery in North Yorkshire turn up on a Saturday morning. In four hours, 900 patients were immunised in a “walk through” socially distanced clinic with a garden overspill. To lift the gloom I donned my kilt.

Dr S J Wallace
Richmond, North Yorkshire

SIR – I read with interest the difficulties some have had in obtaining a Covid-19 vaccination. They are still in a much better place than the residents of Bedford. There is no vaccine invitation for my mother-in-law aged 96. I learnt last week that no GP practices in the town wanted to participate in the first round of inoculation.

We must now hope for something more positive in 2021.

Ray Seymour
Bedford

SIR – I am a retired GP and attempted to volunteer as a Covid vaccinator through the approved website last week. This proved impossible.

I am relatively recently retired, having relinquished my registration with the GMC in 2017. Having completed large sections of the application form, I reached the section at the end entitled “Documents to upload or sign.” I could go no further.

Some documents are obviously needed to confirm my identity for example, however I fail to see a necessity for documents proving attendance for Conflict Resolution, Equality Diversity and Human Rights, Fire Safety, and Preventing Radicalisation. The list contains 21 documents to be uploaded.

I defy anyone, even doctors currently working in the NHS to provide all of these.

The most likely explanation is that the department responsible for recruiting vaccinators has not actually considered this form. It will prevent almost every willing applicant from being recruited.

Claire Barker
Solihull

Pick of the presents

SIR – Peter Dobson (Letters, December 21) gave litter-pickers as Christmas presents.

A litter picker with magnetic claw-end is great for prising out small items from the back of the fridge. Ideal for those with bad backs.

John G. Hawley
Ruislip, Middlesex

We saw it coming

SIR – “We may resign ourselves to a distinctly anxious winter and spring. Bad times alternate with good seasons and we must take both as they come and make the best of them.”

So said The Daily Telegraph on December 24 1920.

James Thomson
Silloth, Cumbria

Men reap the benefits of their sewing

SIR – I was glad to read Madeline Grant’s outline of the virtues and extensive history of “macho sewing” (Comment, December 15).

I was taught to sew as a boy by my grandmother and have found it to be an invaluable life skill. I have just repaired four items of clothing which would otherwise have been thrown away.

Gareth Probert
Buckley, Flintshire

SIR – Madeline Grant reports that the woke cultural police at The New York Times are trying to dispel “the old-fashioned housewife imagery” associated with sewing.

They are joining this particular battle a little late. Last year, the British Ministry of Defence conceded that the use of the term housewife for a soldier’s sewing kit was “outdated and no longer [has] a place in the Armed Forces”.

Mind you, whether or not they use a housewife, soldiers still have to sew on their own buttons.

Nick Cowley
Nuthurst, West Sussex

Ritual sacrifice of fish at the doors of the EU

SIR – We had to throw our fish at the Common Market in order to join and now we’ve had to throw our fish at the European Union in order to leave.

Lyn Hopkins
Dereham, Norfolk

SIR – By my reading of the text of the fishing agreement, we are stuck with our maximum catch as determined by the formula at the end of the five-and-a-half year “transition”.

If we seek to take more, we have to terminate the fishing agreement. Under Article FISH. 17: Termination, this automatically triggers the right of the EU to terminate the whole trade agreement, as well as other sections such as aviation agreements.

In reality, we have nothing like control of our fishing. After five and half years we will be in a straitjacket from which there is no realistic escape.

Tim Pope
Weybridge, Surrey

SIR – It is a bit rich of Nicola Sturgeon to suggest that the deal has sold out Scottish fisherman.

They now have increasing quotas. Scottish independence and rejoining the European Union, which is her ultimate aim, would inevitably hand control of Scottish waters back to the EU with less access once again.

Christopher Hunt
Swanley, Kent

SIR – In 1984, when we policed our exclusive economic zone with the consent of our EU colleagues, we had 16 dedicated Royal Navy fishery protection vessels for the purpose, commanded by British Sea Fishery qualified officers.

Could the Government explain how this can now be achieved alone with four?

Lt Cdr Philip Barber RN (retd)
Havant, Hampshire

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