Forget passports – Brexit has robbed us of so much more

Unlike Sean O’Grady, I was happy to leave behind my old blue cardboard British passport with all its personal and imperial associations, along with the painful memories of my father’s Morris Minor within which I failed to learn to drive. A future predicated on fresh opportunities and new relationships seemed to be more attractive to me than a clinging on to the illusory comforts of the past. It is an attitude that I hope my children and grandchildren have adopted as well.

On a recent visit to Ireland, a couple of my Irish friends told me of the life-enhancing opportunities currently being enjoyed by their offspring, one of whom has been thriving as an Erasmus student for a year in Prague, while the other has recently returned from a year studying under the same initiative in the USA. They will, no doubt, be using their EU passports to travel freely around their home continent in the years to come.

As Sean O’Grady says, the denial of such opportunities is something for which those who voted for Brexit have only themselves to blame, chastened I hope when meeting those young people who were too young to vote at the time of the referendum and for whom the Erasmus project is a closed door.

Graham Powell

Cirencester

Aberdeenshire Council has apologised for class photos taken at a primary school being offered to parents “with or without” children with complex needs. The full details of this story have yet to come out. We do not know why the photographer offered the alternative pictures. But what is absolutely certain is that parents and caregivers across the country will have a visceral reaction to this news and will be dealing with their own private grief and rage as they learn of it.

Parents of children with complex needs and those who love and support them know the daily battle to ensure their child is seen, heard and respected as an equal in all settings. Thoughtful efforts from teachers, support staff, medical professionals and community leaders are required to create structures allowing for this equality to be realised. It is hard fought.

Even harder to navigate is the world beyond the security of school; wheelchair access is still unbelievably patchy, the provision of toilets and changing facilities, disgraceful and careless acts of at best misunderstanding and, at worst, micro-aggression, constantly threaten to derail everyday life for families already managing complicated emotional and physical circumstances.

You don’t have to be a person with additional needs or the parent of a child needing extra support to call out discrimination when you see it. And, you will see it everywhere once you start looking. Sometimes, because of the energy and grace of parents and caregivers, we can convince ourselves that such attitudes are a thing of the past, but until policy and attitudes converge allowing everyone with additional needs to live the life they want without worrying about judgement, there is still much work to be done.

Of course, the parents protested about this ridiculous exclusion, of course the school removed the link from its website, and of course the company will condemn the individual – but the hurt has already been caused.

Victoria Dimmock

Brighton

Taxpayers’ money should go to those who need it, and many of us pensioners don’t. It should also be taken from those who can afford it. Many of us pensioners could, and willingly would, pay some more tax. But there are others, individuals and companies, who could afford a lot more.

Furthermore, if pensions are to be increased, it makes sense to align them with inflation and average wage rises. But why 2.5 per cent? That, surely, is merely a figure plucked from the air. In theory, the other two could increase by much less but pensions would still have to rise by 2.5 per cent.

A double lock would be quite adequate. The triple lock sounds suspiciously like another attempt to appease the older voters – traditionally Tory supporters. Some of us might be offended by this assumption of our gullibility.

Susan Alexander

Address supplied

I think your leader yesterday hit the nail firmly on the head as regards our water industry. The fundamental problem is that it is a series of local monopolies, which have shown that they suffer from the usual monopoly problems.

If a commercial firm trading in a competitive environment fails to invest in new plants and equipment, development of new products, new premises or computer systems, their product or service will gradually become unsaleable, and their customers will turn to other providers. That model does not apply to water. Whether Thames Water does or does not invest in new facilities or infrastructure, the water rates and charges for its users in London and the Thames Valley will continue to flow into its coffers.

Those of us who were optimistic at the time of privatisation trusted that vigorous regulation would supply the required correction, and impetus towards modernisation of the industry – but in that respect Ofwat has been shown to be completely and woefully inadequate. This is a dangerous situation we find ourselves in, in an industry so crucial to public health as water and sewage, and I now agree with you that the only remedy is public ownership.

Richard Swinney

Address supplied