Nick Hardwick shouldn’t have been made to resign over Worboys

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Nick Hardwick resigned moments before the parole board's decision on Worboys was overturned (Parole Board)

As an independent member of the Parole Board, appointed under Nick Hardwick’s chairmanship, I am disappointed and angry that he has been forced to resign.

On his watch the board cleared the long-standing backlog: dealing with 25,000 cases and holding more than 7,000 oral hearings in 2017 while at the same time keeping the rate of serious further offending at less than 1 per cent.

Throughout his tenure, Hardwick worked tirelessly to increase understanding of the board’s work and pushed for greater transparency.

He championed increased engagement with victims. He was a powerful advocate for a truly independent parole board and we need that now more than ever.

Victoria Scott, Independent Parole Board member
London

Education standards are in freefall

While watching a television documentary on how EasyJet train their pilots, it really brought home to me how poorly educated so many of our young people are these days, despite those who may have a string of certificates to their names. A young first officer was making his first announcement to the passengers and the captain told him to say they were flying at 30,000 feet approaching the Bay of Biscay. The young first officer frowned and said: “Bay of Biscay – never heard of it.” The captain then told him to say “flying over the Atlantic” instead.

Joan McTigue
Middlesbrough

Liam Fox is plain old wrong

In your Brexit special edition (29 March) Liam Fox, secretary of state for international trade, said, “In the EU referendum the British public voted to restore our sovereignty”. Except they didn’t because, as his government’s own white paper published before the parliamentary vote to trigger Article 50 clearly stated, sovereignty was never lost in the first place.

Michael O’Hare
Northwood

Liam Fox points out that we are already exporting to the rest of the world more than we are to the EU – so why leave? Will a few free trade agreements with more powerful countries help or hinder us?

Keith Sunderland
Address supplied

I can’t help but wonder, what could be different?

Reading all the excellent articles to mark one year to go on Brexit, I wondered where we would be if the referendum was never called.

Firstly, we would have a strong and stable prime minister – like him or not, David Cameron did have credibility. No comment on the current resident at No 10.

Next we would probably have competent, proper politicians for most roles in the cabinet

and they would be focusing more on our real problems: policing, education, etc.

We would not have experienced the empowerment of the far right, which has in turn led to an increase in racism and bigotry.

Vast amounts of public money would not have been spent – on essentially nothing. There would be far fewer problems to overcome in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Gibraltar.

This is not an exhaustive list – otherwise one would need a whole page – but how about, last but not least, Jeremy Corbyn would not be waiting in the wings for Downing Street.

The last almost two years have not exactly been a tribute to human wisdom!

Robert Boston
Kingshill

There is a missing organ indeed

Interstitium? When I first heard about the discovery of a new organ I thought it could perhaps be a Tory heart: but sadly, no.

Eddie Dougall​
Bury St Edmunds