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Farcical performance

Television is a wonderful invention. It gives us entertainment and 24 hour news.

This week as I always do, I turned on the television for the evening news.

Once again the TV announcer gives us the usual old flannel about the Brexit impasse.

We then go outside Parliament where the interviewer speaks to the usual suspects from the politically parties.

I then get angrier and angrier as I see in the background the boot licking remain brigade wrapped in the Disunion flag chanting the Ode to Pan, sorry Joy.

That same evening I watched a programme on Devon and Cornwall, two of my favourite haunts. It showed the open air Minack Theatre in Cornwall carved out of the granite on the cliff side with the magnificent view of the Atlantic looking down on Porthcurno Bay.

The orchestra at the Minack then started to play Land of Hope and Glory. The packed audience of all ages started waving a sea of Union Flags. I was filled with national pride and felt privileged to be British, with our way of life, customs and history, from the highland games in the north to the Minack in the South, to name but a few examples of our heritage and culture.

May I make a suggestion to Madame Mayhem.The next time, not again Theresa, you put a vote to the Guinness Book of Records Indecisive Society.You show the clip of the Minack and the audience who were present, who love their country as us Brexiteers do. It may embarrass them into ending this farce at our countries expense by voting to leave as they promised us.

Bill Williams, Covingham

None of the above

For the last 61 years, since I was old enough to vote, I have used my vote in the belief that having the right to vote meant that I should exercise that right.

Given the current political situation, which is turning this once-great country into a joke in the eyes of the rest of the world, my first reaction is not to bother to vote for my usual preference. I would still visit the polling station, but having no intention of spoiling my ballot paper I would prefer an extra selection box to be added to the ballot paper stating “ none of the above”. I have a feeling that it could be well used, as the old order of political preference is now fatally flawed.

B Newman, Westlea

Big fashionable lie

Once again Des Morgan repeats a fashionable Brexit lie. In his reply to my letter about his fashionable explanation that the proposed Honda closure is nothing to do with Brexit, he repeats the mantra that the 2016 EU referendum was the ‘largest democratic exercise’ in UK history, with the ‘largest turnout and the greatest number of votes ever cast in the UK’.

This is simply not true. In the1992 election when John Major was elected there were 36,732 more votes cast than in the 2016 referendum.

The 2016 referendum didn’t even get the greatest turnout per head of population either. Every UK election between 1950 and 1992 except the 1970 election drew a greater turnout of voters proportionately.

So another Brexit lie bites the dust. Yet this constantly repeated article of faith is bandied around as gospel in the media, TV and even in parliament without challenge. When May stated it in parliament on November 15 and the government stated it in their white paper in July 2018 they must have known it was a lie. Yet no one challenged this lie in parliament.

They do say if you’re going to tell a lie and be believed, make it a big one. Take the lie on the side of the big red bus; a recent survey revealed 42 per cent of those questioned still believe it, even after three years of debunking! Seventy million Turks on the way to Britain through EU free movement? Turkey applied to join the EU 30 years ago. Its standards of democracy and social progress are still decades away from qualifying for EU membership standards. Yet that scare story was believed. What’s the point of telling the truth when the lie is so much more fashionable?

Steve Rouse, Wroughton

Support for car ban

I read your report that Wiltshire Council will ban cars on the Ridgeway between Overton and Hackpen Hills during the coming summer.

Having taken advantage of the glorious weather in late March I can vouch for the fact that a lengthy section of the Ridgeway in this area is extremely difficult to negotiate on foot. The rutting is very deep and one is constantly having to hop from one side to another to make progress.

It is my contention that all powered vehicles should be permanently banned from the Ridgeway. The only exceptions would be disabled and farm vehicles - the latter should be required to obtain a licence from the local authority charged at a rate commensurate with the cost of upkeep incurred by the local council.

Only by banning powered vehicles (cars and motorbikes) will we be able to protect this key part of our national heritage.

Tony Mayer, Haydon Wick