Letters - April 10. 2019

I am sorry to see Blackpool council taken in by EasyJet’s rose-tinted proposals. Budget hotels are not the answer to Blackpool’s decline. They encourage more stag parties etc and not the business or conference visitors, who are largely on expenses.

Last week instead of travelling into town on the tram from Cleveleys and alighting at North Pier, I drove to Sainsbury’s and walked down Talbot Road and back along Abingdon Street. Do the powers that be in the town hall ever walk these routes? This is the first taste of Blackpool for many and it is so depressing with boarded-up shops, fast food outlets, betting shops and charity shops. Travel to Preston on the train and see the difference - it is chalk and cheese.

The new tram tracks look great but little else. More budget hotels are not he answer. The council should address the core problems and encourage better retail outlets and back local hotel and B &B owners - and not multi-million corporations out for more profit.

Carol Johnston

Cleveleys

BREXIT

So much for EU democracy

There is much talk about the UK being forced into a customs union with the EU when Brexit finally happens (don’t be surprised if I return to this issue in two years’ time!)

One much vaulted claim by the Leave campaign was that we would be able to negotiate trade deals with many more countries in the world rather than the limited 27 to be found in the EU.

Being in the customs union is supposed to mean that the EU alone - rather than individual states of the EU - negotiates trade deals with other countries.

So how come Germany is allowed to sign a $10bn trade deal with China recently.

Why is Germany allowed this preferential treatment? Oh that’s right, because both Germany and France are calling the shots in the EU.

These two countries are the collective tail which wags the dog that is the EU.

And then there are those in the Commons who make a dog’s dinner of leaving the EU, with the DUP seemingly being the tail of the dog that is called the Conservative Party.

Well, if I were the DUP, I would not complain too much about the backstop.

If we crash out of the EU with no deal, then the EU would set up a hard border between the North of Ireland and the Republic and the DUP could complain all it likes but would get nowhere.

What would then follow would be a referendum about making one united Ireland, which the DUP would surely lose and then they would become irrelevant.

Then we have the leader of the opposition going to Brussels with his entourage for ‘talks’. For what purpose?

I hear nothing about anything being brought back to the Commons for use in debates, so it was just a jolly at our expense, in my opinion.

Then we have the situation whereby the EU signs a free trade deal with Japan.

Many years prior to this, Japan thought it would be a good idea for car companies such as Honda, Toyota and Nissan to have factories in the UK.

Then they could export cars to the EU tariff-free.

That is now no longer necessary as the incentive is no longer there or rather it is being replaced by a better incentive so, with Japan’s economy going through a rough patch, it is no surprise that Japan is bringing this lucrative industry back in-house, despite the increased transport costs. Talk about the EU stabbing us in the back!

What a mess we are in and Germany rubs our noses in it by being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries outside of the EU while we, if we remain in the EU - and in doing so have to pay billions of pounds each year as ‘club membership’ - won’t be able to.

So much for democracy in the EU.

Neil Swindlehurst

Lancashire

SOCIETY

Big Brother is watching now

We live in a world increasingly monitored by the state and, more importantly, by tech giants via ‘smart’ devices like Amazon Echo that record everything in the home.

Big Brother is watching you is no longer a figurative term for the future, it’s happening now whether we like it or not. And how do the powers that be justify this invasion of privacy? It’s for our own protection and convenience, of course! As Aldous Huxley said: “People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

Julie Francis

Blackpool