Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Playing numbers game

I HAVE just been looking through the vote in the General Election.

It really does bring into very sharp focus just how unequal and un-representative our “mother of all parliaments” actually is.

To get a Conservative elected you needed 43,000 blue electors, yet to get a Labour MP you needed more than 49,000 people to cross the red box.

It means you need a lot more people across the country to vote Labour to end up with exactly the same number of Parliamentary seats as Conservatives.

It gets worse. To get a Liberal Democrat MP you need 198,000 people to vote Liberal Democrat and for a Green 525,000 people.

At least if the regions have their own devolved Governments, at a massive additional cost to the English taxpayer, then their representation at Westminster will surely be more balanced - at least similar to, say, the Conservative number.

Wrong. To get a DUP MP in Westminster only 29,000 people need to say yes but at the pinnacle of injustice is Scotland, with a tiny six million population and where just 27,000 votes will get you a yellow and black MP.

It’s little wonder they are quickly back-pedalling from a second referendum. Completely skewed financial settlements in their favour, enabling free tuition fees, free prescriptions etc, their own Parliament, and still hugely over representation at our Westminster Parliament.

And now, of course, the DUP gallop into the picture with their hand out and have quickly had it dabbed with a tidy £1,500,000,000, which is “essential and appropriate” today - although it wasn’t before the General Election.

It’s a good job us poor old English taxpayers or, more accurately, our descendants, can afford all this largesse.

I did try to calculate how many people you need nationally to vote UKIP to get a single kipper in Parliament but it seems however many vote UKIP, you just don’t get one.

JOHN STOOKE, Haydon End, Swindon

Orwellian future awaits

RECENTLY there have been two letters that were critical of the Tories’ attempt to come to an understanding with the DUP who are socially Conservative on issues such as marriage and abortion,calling them, among other things, “homophobes.”

The views that the DUP hold on marriage are not only endorsed by the vast majority of people of Northern Ireland, but also by many across the UK.

And, if people were made aware of the status of the baby in the womb at just eight weeks gestation, then the position that the DUP holds on this issue as well would become more mainstream.

Why is it so wrong in our supposedly tolerant democratic society to believe that a child is best brought up under the nurture of a man and woman in marriage without being called a “bigot” or a “homophobe” and subject to vitriolic abuse as demonstrated by the hounding of Tim Farron?

As much as we want to live in an open, tolerant society, and be sympathetic to those that struggle with gender identity and same sex attraction, it would appear that the very aggressive, radical LGBT activism that we have today is a very real threat to the freedoms of religion, speech and conscience.

An example can be found in the State of Ontario, Canada, where a law has been passed that if your eight -year-old son believes he is a girl and wants to wear a dress and you, as his parents, refuse him, that is considered child abuse and the State has the power to take that child away and place him in an environment in which he can be raised as a girl.

Could that kind of Orwellian law happen here? Yes, if people remain silent and do not say “enough of this lunacy.”

I shudder to think what kind of anarchic society we will turn into if people hit the snooze button and allow this bigoted intolerance, which masquerades as equality and diversity, to go on unchecked.

STEVE JACK, Parsonage Court, Highworth

You don’t like it? Move

OH DEAR, so Jeff King of Old Town, Swindon, is “embarrassed about living in Swindon” (EA letters June 17). Furthermore, he considers “Swindon is a culturally backward, intellectual backwater” and “is the clueless dunce in the corner.”

Why all these insults? Because 54,240 voters (representing 69 per cent of the electorate who actually turned out to vote) voted for two Conservative MPs to represent Swindon.

This, Jeff King, is what is known as democracy, and so your letter not only insulted the town of Swindon, it also insulted 54,240 of its residents.

If you truly are embarrassed about living in Swindon because, in your words ,“Swindon is now the biggest city or town in England with Labour MPs” then might I suggest you move to somewhere where there is a Labour MP, eg Hackney North and Stoke Newington?

CLIVE BENFIELD, Downton Road, Swindon

Saga will run and run

I’M NO fan of Adam Poole who in my opinion is a sore loser who refuses to accept the democratic EU referendum.

However, I admire his tenacity in repeating the mantra of the disaffected Remainer, ‘we were conned’, as in the Leave campaign was built on of a tissue of lies.

In his latest epistle (SA 27 June) he perpetuates the myth that those who had the effrontery to vote to leave the political machine of the EU were deluded and not very intelligent.

So much so that, according to Mr Poole, “people cannot possibly have known what they were voting for.”

Many Remain voters advocate the importance of tolerance and an understanding of different viewpoints but reveal in themselves levels of intolerance they deplore in others.

They condemn the thought that all Muslims should be held responsible for the actions of Isis, but proceed to implicate all Brexit voters for hate incidents post-Brexit.

Mr Poole is right to abhor the exaggerated claims made by the Leave campaign but wrong to ignore the scare tactics used by the Remain camp.

His attempt to present Project Fear as being nothing more than an attempt to “warn of risk’ would be laughable if it wasn’t a serious attempt to persuade the people that the Remain campaign was principled and virtuous.

After 12 months we have reached the point where the UK has invoked Article 50 (it should have been done on June 24, 2016) and the EU is now working to extract the highest price it can from the UK (they need to fill a £10bn hole) and punish the UK (it could do a deal tomorrow if it wanted to).

And still Mr Poole wants the vote of a majority set aside and a public inquiry set up into the Leave campaign.

I suspect this saga will be like The Mousetrap and set for a long run.

DES MORGAN, Caraway Drive, Swindon

EU not good for industry

ANNUL the referendum result pleads Adam Poole in his letter June 27, but Britain has chosen economic freedom as the pathway forward.

Britain wants its independence. Article 50 has been triggered. In the General Election the two major parties both agreed to press on with leaving the EU.

Britain’s manufacturing base has been eroded by 44 years in the single market. EU membership has not been good for Britain’s industry.

The young generation cannot afford to rent or buy. There is a housing crisis. The aim should be to have a decent home and job for all.

A salubrious environment is now required for British families to raise their children.

We must turn our backs on those horrible tower blocks and in future build proper homes for all working class people.

STEVE HALDEN, Beaufort Green, Swindon

Art worth seeing

AS I was in Old Town with some time on my hands I went to the art gallery. It always gives me a thrill to see a Lowry picture in the flesh, as it were.

But what really caught my eye was a vase that I hadn’t seen before. It was large, probably two gallon capacity, white ceramic with small discs attached to the outside in their thousands.

They were white one side and blue the other and attached in whorls. At first it was the oddness that caught my attention but as I looked I saw stooks of wheat in the patterns, the fields of waving grass, then trees in a woodland setting, then murmurations of starlings and shoals of fish.

I would normally encourage anyone to visit the art gallery if they are in Old Town, but I would encourage you all to make a special visit to see this vase.

STEVE THOMPSON, Norman Road, Swindon

Better punishment

REFERENCE “addict mum jailed for store theft” 27/07/2017. Do you see any sense in jailing a woman for five weeks? Is she a danger to society?

What’s the cost to the tax payers for five weeks, of free board and lodge, meals and TV. As I was once told, “it’s a bit like Butlins without the food poisoning!”

Ten weeks litter picking at supermarkets, empty alcohol bottles only, would be more sense.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED