Readers' letters

Remainers such as Barry Clayton are big on scare tactics but low on facts (WEP September 12).

Regarding trade with the EU, for every £6 they buy from us, we buy £10 from them.

The Germans buy £10bn worth of goods from us whilst we buy £60bn worth of goods from them.

This is one of the reasons why our balance deficit with the EU in 2013 was £67bn and the Germans had a plus balance of around 80bn.

The German engineering companies and the French and Spanish farmers are worried about a trade war.

Then there is the worry of Frankfurt taking over as the financial centre of Europe, but as Axel Weber, former head of the German Bundesbank, said, we do cars and the British do finance.

Then there is the Obama scare tactics that Britain will go to the back of the queue in trade talks. Since we are America’s biggest trading partner and its biggest external investor, responsible for the creation of one million jobs, American politicians and industrialists were quick to distance themselves from the President’s views.

With regard to trade negotiations, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks between Europe and the USA have failed after three years with not one single area of agreement.

It is difficult for 27 countries to reach common agreement and so Britain on its own has a much better chance.

W Fielding,

Orrell

society

Nuisance phone calls

Over the past month, our home phone has been targeted at least twice a day by nuisance calls from the same source. When we reach the phone, we are always greeted by silence with, after about 30 seconds, a recorded “good-bye.”

The caller always disconnects when the answer phone switches on and 1471 always says ‘number unobtainable’. We have the normal blockers and up to now they have worked well, but the situation is very frustrating and we now leave the phone when it rings to see if the caller uses the answer phone. Not a satisfactory solution.

The only cure I can think of is for new legislation requiring all business users without exception to provide a 1471 friendly identification before they are allowed to use a UK network.

To prevent rogue traders switching to private phones, multiple calls from private phones should be automatically blocked.

This needs Parliamentary action.

Alec Denton,

Address supplied

technology

Too young for Instagram

Katie Price’s children’s Instagram accounts have been suspended. Those kids are not even into double figures age-wise yet they are using social media. We wonder why our kids are exposed to the wrong things at too young a age.

Jayne Grayson via email

nature

Vanishing sparrows

I have a large tree that I originally bought from Woolworths 50 years ago, and named the Tree of Heaven.

Up to a couple of weeks ago we have had all sorts of birds in the garden, but now all the sparrows have gone.

They used to bathe in a bird bath. Is there a reason for their demise?

Mr RC Carter via email