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Incorrect statements

HOW very sad that Adver journalist Marion Sauvebois should repeat the canard that has inappropriately been levelled at those who supported the Leave campaign.

It is simply not true that supporters of Brexit peddled the story that ALL migrants steal jobs, scrounge and are a modern plague on our ever diminishing resources.

It is equally untrue to state that Leave campaigners have failed to recognise and credit the contribution foreign nationals have made to our society.

What many Leave supporters feel is that all immigration, to include illegal, or as the EU demand we refer to it, irregular entry and total freedom to reside in the UK should be more effectively managed to the needs and requirements of British society.

However, Marion’s finest comment is found in her view that supporters of Leave have engaged in a “ludicrous smear campaign on the EU” – I suppose railing against the EU may soon become illegal, a bit like saying unpleasant things about the Turkish President.

Sadly, Marion chooses to lump anyone who supported the Leave campaign as bigots, racists and xenophobes.

Perhaps she should be reminded that it was the British Prime Minister who called the Referendum – and that there was only two questions asked – in or out.

Finally, Marion asks that people choose unity over division by which of course she means choose to say in the political edifice of the EU.

That choice will not lead to unity in a country which is so strongly divided in its opinion on the merits of belonging to an organisation which is determined to subjugate the people of this island into its long hoped-for Federal Europe.

I dread to think what would have happened in 1939 if Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne had been in charge – a meek surrender would probably have been the outcome and we might all be speaking German.

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive, Swindon

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Major points ignored

BY THE time this letter gets read we will all be aware of whether we remain part of EU, or alternatively have decided to go it alone, and thus become an even “poorer” than our already notoriety of being the “poor man of Europe” with the biggest balance of payments deficit, (and growing) in the western world.

I watched some of the TV debates, and have to say that many of the questions from audiences were the predictable ones.

However, some of the points being made by the chosen panel guests were ridiculous and laughable.

One of the silliest statements, made on several occasions, was that there were two people that would be delighted if Britain were to vote for Brexit, and that was Vladimir Putin, after his invasion of Ukraine, and Donald Trump.

Firstly, where did this information suddenly appear from, as did anyone approach President Putin to ask if he had any opinion on the British vote?

Despite his sometimes stony-faced demeanour, and being the leader of the largest country on the planet by far, he does not bite and is very approachable.

And what of the repeated concocted fairytale about a Russian invasion of Ukraine?

There does appear to be some confusion regarding the American CIA-inspired coup in Kiev in February 2014.

As the old saying goes, if one repeats a lie often enough then the population at large then believes it without question.

The master proponent of this methodology was Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Despite this falsehood being repeated countless times in the debates, not one single person in the audience saw fit to question it, or indeed correct it.

As for Donald Trump, he changes opinions like the wind, and sometimes it is a challenge to be able to establish if he knows what day of the week it is.

Another repeated reason for staying given by David Cameron was that being a member of the EU has kept the peace in Europe, which may have some substance.

However, what is much more alarming is that the same false anti-Russian propaganda that is currently doing the rounds is being used by a US-led NATO to encroach upon Russia’s borders.

Ever more threatening exercises are being carried out there, with what appears to be some sort of perverted ambition to reignite the Cold War or possibly a real third world war.

It has been repeatedly said that NATO needs to have an enemy to justify its existence, along with all the expense of maintaining the jobs and equipment and what better way is there than to continually antagonise the old, perceived foe?

Finally, Cameron surely cannot escape the fact that NATO, which was firstly set up as purely defensive, is now being used as a mostly offensive, which serves to advance the war ambitions of giant US arms corporations, as recent conflicts inspired by them include Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and of course the US-inspired trouble in Ukraine.

This week 50-plus war hawks in the US administration drafted a letter to US Foreign Secretary John Kerry urging a full-scale invasion and bombing campaign to overthrow President Assad of Syria, despite Russian and purportedly Chinese advisors on the ground.

This errant stupidity could be the fuse that ignites the third world war, which anyone in their right mind on the planet wants to avoid at all costs.

G A WOODWARD

Nelson Street, Swindon

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Town’s cultural heritage

YOU may remember two weeks ago me ranting on about the £25 million cost of building a new (grey elephant) art gallery, with an alternative of giving the land to Barrett to build flats, leaving the community a free ground floor gallery.

I have just enjoyed the second public screening of Martin Parry’s very good film on the History Of Swindon which, apart from a thoughtful and well-researched analysis of this fine town, is also, appropriately, a puff for the Mechanics’ Institute Preservation Trust.

My dear friends Gary Perkins and co, and their mates in Forward Swindon, continue to bang on incessantly about a new cultural quarter led by their flagship £25 million art gallery, just outside their offices.

But we have a superb historic building, central to the cultural and artistic history of the town, falling apart before our eyes and, even if restored, with no obvious use… as against another £25 million concrete and glass “futuristic” box on the old car park.

So let’s have a look at this Cultural Quarter. In the red corner we have a 700-seat theatre rarely more than half full, an empty Chinese restaurant and two rows of abandoned shops, Foxies ‘Gentleman’s Club’, two courthouses, a derelict hotel and a couple of blocks of flats.

But, in the blue corner, the finest preserved Victorian village in Western Europe, the Wesleyan Church and historic lodging house, now a music and dance centre for young people, pedestrian access to a range of preserved historic railway buildings including the excellent Steam museum and the National Records Office, the first subscription-funded hospital in the country, a technical university, one of the first public swimming and health centres in the UK and a Victorian cottage museum.

And, at its centre, the building in which Swindon’s cultural history was born, which is crying out for investment, crying out for a future.

I’m no boxing referee but if I was, surely wouldn’t it be blue on a knockout?

And Gary, if you’re still not convinced, do what I did and watch the movie.

JOHN STOOKE

Haydon End, Swindon

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Give us some answers

I AM fed up with Swindon Borough Council pleading poverty.

They are trying to pass the buck for many things including Youth Services, libraries, Lydiard House and grass cutting, to name but a few.

Will they still get their high salaries after they have washed their hands of all of these? Yes, they will.

Will they tell us of all of the failures they have had on their ill-thought out schemes which have not come to fruition? No, they will not.

They now have a second plan to get high speed broadband across Swindon and district.

Again it was reported that they have flaws in the system. How surprising.

The leader of the council was on the BBC the other day and I was going to ask the following question.

But, as he did not answer any questions put to him, I thought it would be a waste of time phoning in.

The following would have been the question: Let’s go back to 2005 when £250,000 was granted for a youth centre in the Moredon area.

In 2008 they held a meeting to proudly tell us about this wonderful scheme.

The councillors were so ill-informed the meeting closed without any conclusion.

Since then I have been trying to find out where this money has gone to. Has it been wasted on other fruitless schemes?

The people who would have benefited from this centre have now all grown up but others still need this sort of facility.

I have been told the money is still there and the centre will be in one place, then another.

It seems no Swindon councillor has the backbone to stand up and say this money is still available for the purpose it was intended for, or it has been used for other purposes.

Let’s have some answers.

It is our money you are playing around with.

Perhaps councillors should get paid on results and, if so, they may well owe us money.

CLIVE CARTER

Moredon, Swindon

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Day spent at the races

AN MP is cruelly murdered. The EU camp is put on hold for a few days. President Obama actually telephones the husband of the murdered woman giving his condolences.

What does Mrs Windsor, our head of state do?

Courtesy of taxpayer benefits system she went orf to the jolly Ascot races!

STEVE NIBBS

Milton Road, Swindon