Readers' letters - February 18

One reader has stopped playing the lottery see why in the letter below

After adding 10 numbers to the Lotto draw some months ago – increasing the odds of winning from 14 million to one to 45 million to one – there have been very few jackpot winners of the National Lottery and the money has kept on rolling over.

Last Wednesday was a final rollover and Camelot guaranteed the jackpot of £28.6m had to be won or, if there were no jackpot winners, it would be shared among the next level of winners. There were 78 people with five numbers so they should have received £366,666 each. Instead they got just £883 each.

I stopped buying lottery tickets when Camelot doubled the ticket price from £1 to £2. Adding the 10 extra numbers was clearly a further move by Camelot to reduce the chances of players winning any of the prizes.

Martin J. Phillips via email

RETAIL

Support our butchers

Without a shadow of a doubt, some of the most tolerant and hard-working business members of our society are family butchers.

They have to compete with many supermarkets who are prepared to buy and sell cheap foreign imported meats, not giving a jot of how it was reared and where from.

Butchers deserve better support from us Brits.

There isn’t all that great a difference in price and, in my long life’s experience, cheapest is very often far from the best.

So let’s all remember without farmers there would be no local butchers and without local butchers there would be a big shortage of stock farmers.

I, for one, will buy locally sourced meat.

Ken Holmes,

Address supplied

charity

Go on run in aid of cause

Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF) estimates that there are around 3,200 cases of bacterial meningitis and septicaemia every year in the UK. They are easily mistaken for milder illnesses, but unlike a dose of flu, can kill within hours and may cause serious, life-long disabilities. As many as one in ten of those affected will die.

Meningitis Research Foundation still have a few charity places available for the Great Manchester Run on May 22. The run is an annual 10km run through Greater Manchester. It is the largest of its type in Europe, and is broadcast live on BBC.

Sign up and we will supply you with your own running and sponsorship pack to help you on your way, and your own running vest for race day.

Please email Jenny Robinson on [email protected] or call 0333 405 6241 for an application form. Places will be offered on a first come, first serve basis. Or apply online for the Great Manchester Run on our website http://www.meningitis.org/event/great-manchester-run

Jenny Robinson

Meningitis Research Foundation

POLITICS

Jess gives us EU argument

After the deceptions, the smoke and mirrors, the ostrich-style head-burying, the self-delusion and broken promises, it had seemed that the case for Brexit would prevail but not necessarily so.

Labour MP Jess Phillips has zapped us with a seemingly irrefutable argument. She apparently believes that we should stay in the EU “because her brother lives in France”.

Phew! My own intellectual arguments now lie in tatters.

Les Arnott via email