Letters - July 22, 2016

One only has to watch the programme ‘100 year old drivers rebooted’, (ITV1 Wednesdays) to see what a danger elderly drivers are to other people. These people should never be allowed to continue to drive as the concentration required on today’s roads calls for a lot more alertness than having the ability to shout giddy up and whoa.

Malcolm Boyce

Marton

BREXIT

Let’s just cut out the middle man...

I cannot understand why ‘EU funding’ is such an issue for the ‘Remain’ voters. We pay in - an unelected body pays out and decides were the money goes.

Let’s just cut out the middle men and apply for grants from our elected government. These grants would be from the savings we will not be making to the EU. Is it not that straightforward? Have I missed something?

Jeff Banks

Via email

TRIDENT

We must be able to protect ourselves

Marjorie Nye (letters, 20 July) says Trident is not rational. On the contrary it is extremely rational.

We live in a very dangerous world. Thanks to a resurgent Russia under Putin, an ex KGB man, it is becoming more and more dangerous . Defence planners never know what unexpected threat will emerge. They have to plan for the threat that appears out of nowhere.

The first duty of any government is to protect the nation’s security. What would happen if we scrapped our nuclear deterrent and a rogue state like Iran of North Korea subjected us to nuclear blackmail? We cannot, and should not, keep relying on America to come to our aid-she has saved us on at least two previous occasions.

The nuclear weapon is indeed terrible, it is meant to be. The more terrible the better it will deter a would be aggressor.

I can assure Marjorie Nye that the safety checks in place are impressive and ‘double guarded’. Near misses, so called, are deliberately exaggerated.

I am glad that 140 Labour MPs had the good sense to vote in favour of renewal. Patriotism requires rational thinking.

A world without weapons is a pipe dream. I was present at an address by Dennis Healey when he was Defence Secretary-there has never been an equal. He poured scorn on disarmers for ‘ living in a dream world of make -believe.’ It was he who echoed the views of American nuclear whizz-kids that an enemy would be deterred if it believed there would be only a one per cent chance of being on the receiving end of a nuclear response. Mutually assured destruction works.

You cannot deter an armed burglar with a pop gun.

Colonel (retired) Barry Clayton

Cleveleys

LABOUR

Ultra left should go and form own party

Mid-1980s: Michael Foot, extreme left, CND, Gang of Four.

Thatcher decimated the Labour Party at the next General Election.

2016: Jeremy Corbyn, extreme left, CND.

Even Mystic Meg could forecast the result of the next election.

When will the Labour Party learn?

If the extreme left are so convinced that they can win the next election, why don’t they form their own party and stand for election on their own agenda?

P Barker

Via email

HEALTH

Tackle childhood obesity now

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. Overweight children become overweight adults and, as a result, are far more likely to develop conditions such as diabetes and heart disease at a younger age than we’ve seen in previous generations.

These conditions have a devastating impact on individuals and place a huge financial burden on our already over-stretched NHS.

With local councils in England warning this week that Government cuts to public health funding could hamper their efforts to tackle obesity, ministers must put our children first.

The Government’s desperately needed childhood obesity strategy has been repeatedly delayed.

Worryingly, a leaked draft of the document suggests that ministers’ pledges to help protect our children have been watered down after lobbying from the food industry.

It is vital that the Government produces a comprehensive and bold childhood obesity strategy with ambitious targets, backed up by legislation, for the reduction of sugar, saturated fat and salt from our food, and introduces restrictions on junk food marketing to prevent manufacturers targeting children.

Professor Parveen Kumar

Board of science chairman

British Medical Association

SOCIETY

Referendum showed problems in Uk

The referendum was divisive but now we need to be united and work together.

There are several problems the referendum showed.

Areas with high unemployment voted Leave, as did those that are economically depressed and have high immigrant populations.

We need to provide better education and skills training. We need to stop politicising education, make sure children are literate and numerate when they leave school.

It is time to invest in people and new industries and to stop paying the ‘fat cats’ exorbitant bonuses.

We need to help ‘Neets’, those 18 to 24-year-olds who are in neither education nor employment, and persuade “the can’t work, won’t work brigade” that they should.

Sandra Ogden

Address supplied