Brexit is a boon for democracy

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Boris Johnson MP, former Mayor of London and leading Vote Leave campaigner, speaks at Armada House in Bristol (PA)

I applaud Boris Johnson for his sincerity, straightforwardness, and at the same time laud those who accuse him of being a hysterical farce. This is what makes a healthy democracy. I personally found the debates to be concrete, emphatic, informative and inspiring. Both belligerent parties are evoking history, transcending beyond times, cultures and communities, using linguistics as a potent weapon to reach out to wide swathes of potential voters. This is a genuine democracy, when the country will have the opportunity to showcase its democratic credentials, and when people will exercise their democratic rights in free and fair elections away from tanks, military personnel and the barrels of guns; a far cry from the referendum on the Crimean annexation, and other elections elsewhere where there were marred with shootings, assassinations, detentions, vote rigging and electoral fraud.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

What has Mr Cameron told us about the future of the U.K. economy? ‘We will be better off in a reformed EU’.

Perhaps so, but the big problem here is the word ‘reformed’. That will not happen in a way which will ensure that the UK “will be better off”. It will only happen in a manner already laid down in the treaties, to which we are signatory, of Rome, Lisbon and Maastricht.

‘We will have free trading access to the 500 million population of the E.U.’ – true but then what of the other six thousand million population of the rest of this planet? Whilst we are members of the EU we are allowed to trade with non-EU countries only with the permission of and regulated by the EU. Also for large trade deals we are required to offer the other 27 EU states ‘a-part-in-the-deal’.

Mr Abe of Japan, Mr Obama of the USA, Mrs Lagarde of the IMF and others have all said that Brexit will be bad for our economy. Read their words carefully and you will see that the same words, constructions and phrases used by Mr Cameron when he opened his side of the debate. Now Mark Carney of the Bank of England has offered a second talk using the same hymn sheet, but did slip in a quiet note to say that The Bank of England followed government policy. You must forgive me for thinking that these were invitations to read the same script.

Financial advisers offer this caveat “If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is”. Plagiarised this could read “If a caution seems to bad to be true, it probably is”.

This confidence trick is wearing very thin indeed.

D. M. Loxley

North Yorkshire

Birthday shenanigans

In a supposed age of austerity (which an increasing number of political commentators are calling a Tory myth to control us), am I the only one who finds the Queen's 90th birthday shenanigans quite offensive? These people live off us and do not pay their full share of taxes. I am not impressed and I have no respect for them.

R Kimble

Hawksworth

Pope Pius XII

Robert Fisk repeats the familiar line that Pope Pius XII “failed in his duty to denounce the Nazis for the persecution of the Jews” (Europe's Catholic leaders are undoing the Pope's good work on the migrant crisis, Friday 13 May). As an atheist I have no great interest in defending the Vatican (quite the reverse). However, I have just read Michael Winterbottom's short book Pius XII, A Saint in the Making which, although obviously written with the intention of clearing the Pope's name, does make a good case. For example, in 1937 as Cardinal he wrote an encyclical, “With Burning Anxiety”, based on discussions with German Bishops which condemned Nazi antisemitism and racism. In 1942 as Pope he broadcast a Christmas message that prompted the response from the Reich Main Security Office: “God, [the Pope] says, regards all people and races as worthy of the same consideration. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews”. Then, in 1943, as the Nazis began transporting Jews from Rome, the Pope instructed all convents, church buildings and monasteries to be opened to Jewish refugees. Apparently, some 1,500 Jews were hidden at Castel Gandalfo. My husband's great aunt was working at Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome at this time and helped to hide Jews there. Probably because she was English and not a nun herself, she was herself subsequently sought by the Germans and successfully hidden by nuns. As I say, I'm no great fan of the Vatican but I wonder whether this particular Pope has been unfairly criticised, and whether we now lazily and unfairly accept and repeat that criticism.

Beryl Wall

London

School holidays

Dr Draggett (Letters, 15th May) should recognise that parents do not, as taxpayers, pay for their own children's education. Instead, they pay into a common fund for the education of all children. Those of us who have no children also pay into this fund; not pure altruism, but our responsibility under an implicit social contract. The corollary is that parents have a responsibility to co-operate with the school authorities to ensure best value for our investment, and I do not see how this can be achieved if timetables need to be varied to accommodate every child whose parents take them on term-time holidays.

Paul Brett

Stafford