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Council was fantastic

I WOULD like to say thank you to my landlord, Swindon Council, if I may.

During this last week of extreme weather, on two consecutive days, my central heating had failed. I called the council, who couldn’t have been more helpful.

Elvis the engineer arrived just over an hour later the first time.

And Rich arrived just as quickly for my second failure repair.

Both engineers completed the repairs quickly and are a credit to Swindon Council. Thank you once again.

Barbara James, Meadowcroft, Swindon

PM offers no protection

Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar appears willing to allow the EU to dictate what the border looks like between his country and the UK. How else can one interpret his comment that he doesn’t want to engage in tri-partite talks?

Very simply a ‘hard border’ disadvantages the Republic far more than it does Ulster. The fact is that Northern Ireland’s trade with Eire is miniscule compared to its trade with the UK mainland, whereas the Republic depends enormously on ease of access to the North.

The EU bureaucrats are not at all interested in the economic welfare of the people of Ireland. Their overarching aim is twofold - to punish the UK for having the temerity to ‘leave’ their clutches, and to protect the ideology which is the creation of a federal Europe where nation states are subsumed into an amorphous political construct, a bit like the old USSR!

The people of Ireland must surely be surprised at their Prime Minister’s willingness to abrogate any responsibility for protecting their standard of living.

Des Morgan, Caraway Drive, Swindon

Thanks for bravery

On Tuesday evening I watched on BBC2 a program about the RNLI and all its personnel - heroes every one of them.

They are all volunteers and do it for the love of their fellow humans. They put themselves in great danger on just about every call they go on. They are without a doubt heroes in the best possible way. They go out into conditions that would scare most of us to death.

All of them have lives ashore that have, in a lot of cases, nothing to do with the sea. But they volunteer to do this extremely dangerous job so that if they can, they will save some poor person’s life.

It’s certainly not for the money. As I said, volunteers every one.

So why do they do it? I guess because they are better people than most of us. They put other people who are in danger in front of themselves.

They go out in the worst possible conditions to try their hardest to save people from an almost certain death. My heart goes out to these brave men and women.

As an ex-sailing person I know the dangers. I just wish all of them well.

David Collins, Blake Crescent, Swindon

No apology due

Steve Thompson, in today’s Adver, reckons an apology is due to Molly Scott Cato. I disagree entirely.

She supports the EEC but, due to the open border malarky, persons unknown can travel freely in Europe.

Could this have a bearing on the events in Salisbury? or Liventco in London?

The sooner we are out of the EEC, the better. Of course it would mean that many representatives from the UK would lose their seats on the gravy train.

T Lambourne, Royal Wootton Bassett

The younger the better!

Parents of very young children will be relieved to know that the Government is planning to introduce a new test for very young children as they start school.

Some parents will have expressed concern that, after conception, a foetus will waste nine months, as its academic progress remains untested.

Parents are left to agonise about how on earth their child can possibly develop if nobody even considers administering a pencil and paper test. Everyone knows reception class children can’t wait to sit down to do tests.

It has been suggested that the new baseline test will be “self-contradictory, incoherent, unworkable and ultimately inaccurate, invalid and unusable.” and will generate data which is “meaningless and unusable and, most absurdly of all, appears unlikely to even be available until seven years later”.

True maybe, but this view misses three key points. The idea will generate over £10 million for printing corporations. The less than half baked nature of the project fits perfectly the rest of the Government’s canon of education policy (which refuses to be obstructed by anyone who knows anything about education) and, best of all, it will be seven years before we people see how useless it was.

Peter Smith, Woodside Avenue, Swindon

GB industry will benefit

In reply to Steve Thompson (Mar 7) he believes that it is possible to be totally committed to the European Union project while also being a British patriot, but no man can serve two masters.

It is not possible to serve the EU and also properly serve your country at the same time.

It was this dichotomy that has led to all our sovereignty being pass over to the EU during the 45 years since we joined the Common Market in 1973.

For example, David Cameron gave a contract to build 1,200 rail carriages to Siemens in German when he could have given it to Bombardier in Britain and created jobs for British workers!

Because our politicians were keen to give contracts to foreign EU countries Britain now has a trade deficit with the EU of a billion pounds a week. This is scandalous.

It is only after we have left the EU that our politicians can fully concentrate on supporting British industry.

We can only hope and pray that this dictatorship will quickly been slayed, especially after the recent Italian election which saw a huge rebellion by the youth against the EU.

Britain once again came to the rescue of Europe as she has done in previous times in our history.

Martin Costello, Eldene

Our dynamic economy

Everyone with an interest in how this nation can transform into a dynamic economy, should go to the cinema this next week and see the new movie, Bombshell: The Story of Hedy Lamarr.

This is not to just to give money to the film industry, but to make you aware of where approximately 75% of all creative thinking at the fundamental level comes from.

People are concerned about Brexit, but in reality it does not really matter if we are in or out of the EU in the long term. What counts vitally is that this nation has the most dynamic economy in the world and this does not mean the largest economy either.

If we had a major share of the future’s high-tech technologies, other nations would flock to us to buy these technological products that they simply did not have. But unfortunately government, and especially Whitehall, have never listened to and applied anything other than ‘bog standard’ economic strategies that basically have, in real terms, suppressed the greatest intrinsic strength that we have as a nation.

Our people are our greatest strength when it comes to the ‘fundamental thinking’ that is the basis of three-quarters of all new global wealth creation, but government does not understand this and where it is about time that they started to think out of the box for once and indeed for the nation’s own long term good.

Britain needs the creative infrastructure putting in place to release and liberate the people’s inherent world-leading creative thinking at the fundamental base, but where most probably government and Whitehall will not realise this until it is far too late as usual.

Dr David Hill, CEO, World Innovation Foundation, Huddersfield

Show us some Picasso

I was pleased to read this morning that the plans for fabulous new museum and art gallery are going well. I am an massive fan of both the idea of a new SMAG and the the marvellous design.

I have a tremendous regret though that, as a pensioner of limited means, I cannot make a financial contribution. However I promise that if I win the Lottery jackpot I will donate a million pounds.

The art gallery at the moment is too small to show the whole collection, but the curator gives regular lectures on various exhibits and exhibitions, they are very informative.

At the last one I attended, I suggested that for the opening of the new SMAG they put on a Picasso exhibition that would bring people to the opening from all over the UK, and no doubt the world. She immediately said it was a good idea, but she is no doubt very busy and possibly has forgotten. May I commend the idea to Mr Hebden.

Steve Thompson, Norman Road, Swindon