Readers' letters - January 20

Can I, through your column, pass on a message to cyclists – please, please get your lights checked!

When I came upon two cyclists the other day, neither back lights were lit, (neither steady nor flashing).

It had been a dull day and was now verging on gloomy, in that in-between period before true dark, and they had not yet been picked out in my headlights.

Fortunately I had slowed down because of the gloom, and then suddenly they were a silhouette against the bright headlights of the oncoming rush-hour traffic.

After I had overtaken them, I glanced back in my rear-view mirror, as I was taught to do when I learned to drive, to double-check that they were all right, and I saw that one of the bikes did have its front light lit.

The other was still dark. The cyclists didn’t seem to be wearing anything easily visible.

January and February are not known for their bright days and light nights, so please, cyclists, we motorists would be grateful if you would check your lights – and clothing.

We do our best to avoid you, we know how vulnerable you are, please remember that however careful we are, if anything should happen, then we too have to live with the consequences.

Denise Marsden

Address supplied


politics

May’s speech was ‘brilliant’

I was ecstatic listening to the Prime Minister’s brilliant speech regarding our exit plan for escaping from the clutches of the European Union.

Congratulations to Mrs May for the calm, competent and clear way in which she delivered her speech.

It is one of those great speeches, delivered in the true tradition of those other great British leaders, Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher. No waffle, no bull, just plain straight-forward English, effectively giving the EU bureaucrats the message “the British are leaving and if you don’t like it, tough”.

Maybe now the posh, moaning left-wing liberals will have to come down from their ivory towers and finally accept the fact that, in our democracy, the majority view is the only view that matters.

It is quite clear that the vast majority of ordinary folks in the UK want Britain to leave that corrupt edifice and return all power to the elected Government of the UK and away from the junketing, overpaid and incompetent members of the EU bureaucracy.

Well done Prime Minister.

Dick Lindley

Address supplied

politics

What Trump’s already done

In the last few weeks, Donald Trump has:

1. Cancelled the new presidential aircraft that 
had been ordered and 
which he described as “unnecessary and a waste of money”;

2. Repatriated Chrysler jobs from Mexico to the US;

3. ‘Encouraged’ Ford to open a manufacturing plant in the US;

4. Given warning to the pharmaceutical and 
defence industries about profiteering;

5. Taken to task the security services who some say have acted as puppet masters for years;

6. Raised the question of fake news;

7. Promised the UK a trade deal.

Not bad considering he hasn’t taken over yet.

Peter Bye

Via email