ES Views: Brexiteers’ vision seems to be just a recipe for decline

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Chancellor Philip Hammond answering questions at the Commons Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday.
PA
13 October 2017
WEST END FINAL

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Tim Montgomerie is right to say that Philip Hammond is unqualified to lead Britain into Brexit [“As a Brexiteer this is why I think Hammond should go”, Comment, October 9].

After all, the Chancellor has claimed that no one voted to become poorer. This kind of betrayal of the Brexit cause is widespread — there don’t appear to be any leaders brave enough to point out that 52 per cent of the electorate voted against growth.

The Brexit vote was a rejection of GDP as a measurement of success, and a bid for England to be the West’s first post-growth society — only 48 per cent of the population wanted to continue with policies of economic advancement. Until the Brexit leadership engages properly with this aim, it is impossible to see how Brexit can be called a success.

Clearly, their job now is not to develop trading relationships, nor to provide jobs for a shrinking workforce, but to determine the best structures for managing decline.
Professor Charlotte Roueché, Department of Classics/Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College


Theresa May claimed, during her phone-in programme on LBC, that she was being “open and honest”. Yet quite the opposite proved to be the case when she was asked, where her vote would go if there was a second referendum, and pointedly declined to express her opinion (Leader, Oct 11).

Had the Prime Minister now been a Brexiteer there would have been no reason not to say that she was. Accordingly, she unintentionally gave the game away that she is still, at heart, a Remainer, which is discouraging to the majority of the populace.

It really is time that Mrs May was replaced in favour of a true Brexiteer of high intelligence, whose word can be trusted and who is capable of inspiring the nation. Step up, Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Gavin Littaur

Finally the penny has dropped: Chancellor Philip Hammond has admitted that it is conceivable that in a “no deal” scenario there will be no air traffic moving between the UK and EU in March 2019.

The Chancellor thinks this is unlikely, yet Brexit Cabinet colleague Liam Fox recently said that falling out of the EU and adopting World Trade Organisation rules would be fine. Fox should know better, given that the aviation sector simply cannot fall back onto WTO rules.

With the UK leaving Europe’s “open skies”, the Government needs to negotiate a bilateral agreement with the EU, and soon, given that airline schedules and flight bookings are released almost a year in advance.

There may be goodwill to strike a deal, but aviation cannot wait until 2019.
Catherine West
MP for Hornsey and Wood Green


Protection order in Ealing is misplaced

Ealing council’s decision to consider imposing a “public spaces protection order” on prayer vigils near the Marie Stopes clinic appears to be based on unsubstantiated accusations of harassment and insults directed at Marie Stopes staff and patients.

Two years ago I represented a prayer vigil which was threatened with an injunction by Marie Stopes when similar allegations were made. When asked to provide evidence to support their accusations, they were unable to produce anything, nor did the police find anything to justify an arrest.

The law against harassment already provides ample means of dealing with such behaviour and has been used successfully to deal with animal rights demonstrators and impose exclusion zones where there is evidence of unacceptable behaviour, which is not the case here.

The council should beware of criminalising lawful behaviour based on mere unsubstantiated assertions.
Neil Addison, Thomas More Legal Centre


The media should not trivalise OCD

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is frequently talked about but too often inaccurately, leading to distress for those already suffering with the condition. On Wednesday, the Evening Standard’s feature on Harvey Weinstein included the following statement: “sex and love addictions are often classified as a form of OCD”. This was potentially harmful and fundamentally inaccurate.

Sex addictions (or addictions of any kind) are not considered by experts to be a form of OCD. This may seem pedantic, but misconceptions are offensive to the hundreds of thousands of people suffering with the condition.

OCD is far more than most people will realise, which is why this week – OCD Awareness Week is sadly necessary. It can be a devastating and debilitating condition — researchers suggest 63 per cent of people with the disorder have experienced suicidal thoughts. That is why it is important that inaccurate reporting is challenged.
Ashley Fulwood, OCD-UK


Public-sector firms can be a success

Bravo to Anthony Hilton for putting some perspective on the privatised versus nationalised debate. He is spot-on [Comment, October 12].

The simple fact is that the low point for nationalised companies — the Seventies — was also the low point for private companies. It would be difficult to name more than a handful of private corporations that were delivering healthy returns on capital in 1975. That was a difficult decade for all commercial and utility enterprises.

There is a place for a well-run public-sector company in certain industries — just look at some rail companies in Europe. We need to get away from the tired old “private sector good, public sector bad” mantra so common in the business media.
Professor Moorad Choudhry, University of Kent Business School


I was taken for a ride by cab drivers

I have always considered black-cab drivers to be honest and reliable but I have just had two bad experiences.

On two journeys I was taken on extremely circuitous routes, both resulting in exorbitant fares. When I questioned the routes the drivers became either defensive or abusive.

They were either incompetent or deliberately prolonging the journey to bump up the fares. Perhaps the fact that I was a woman travelling alone, clearly having just arrived in London, gave them the impression that I did not know where I was going.

I wonder if this is a common experience. Should we now negotiate a fare before agreeing to the journey, as we do in many parts of the world?
Susan Gladwin


Mind the gap inside the carriage

I welcome the Centre for London's call for a "civility code" [October 10]. My personal bug-bear is when people standing up have lots of space in the middle and those near the door are crammed in like sardines but refuse to move down, so stopping people getting on.

The Tube is too crowded for such selfish behaviour. Perhaps the code could be adopted by TFL?
Mark Webb


Holborn upgrades will be vital for London

After many years working with Transport for London and the Mayor of London to secure essential upgrades to Holborn underground station, we are delighted that the plans to redevelop this major station will go live in a public exhibition at Conway Hall.

We know that businesses across Midtown, encompassing Holborn, Bloomsbury and St Giles, see this as a major step forward for the area and one that we and the businesses we represent have been working towards for many years.

A major centre for growth, Midtown has a rich business community from global tech giants such as Google and Yahoo, to many of the city’s most prestigious law firms, which sit side-by-side with cultural landmarks including the British Museum and world-famous academic institutions such as LSE. It plays a pivotal role in driving forward the capital’s economy and is a hub for investment, with international and domestic developers choosing to invest heavily in the area over the next decade.

Holborn station was last upgraded in the 1930s from its original design in the 1900s. Today, it sees over 186,000 passengers every weekday - set to increase 50 per cent by 2031. Until now these travellers have had to endure lengthy queues, sometimes up to 25 minutes.

These upgrades are essential to ensuring the future prosperity of Midtown. The arrival of the Elizabeth line next year will bring thousands more people into this thriving area, and though extremely welcome, it is vital that we see the delivery of these proposed improvements.

The changes proposed at Holborn will provide a much-needed solution for businesses, local workers, visitors and residents, alleviating the pressure on the station’s Kingsway entrance, providing better access to Midtown workers and visitors with disabilities and removing the need to hold people outside the ticket gates to ensure customer safety. Proposed changes include the installation of a second entrance at Procter Street, lifts to provide step-free access and more space to change between trains.

We know that these upgrades will inevitably mean significant disruption to local roads, including the closure of Proctor Street for up to four years; however the benefits will be felt for many more years to come.

On behalf of all businesses in the Midtown area we will be attending the Mayor’s consultation this week to ensure their interests are on the table. With just six weeks until the public consultation closes, we urge local workers, businesses and Londoners to be part of this consultation and have their say in shaping the future of this vital transport hub.

We have one chance to get this right and the significance of Holborn station cannot be understated. We must make our voice heard and make sure that the Holborn station transformation takes place and that the improvements being made are the right changes for business, residents and visitors alike.
Tass Mavrogordato, CEO of Bee London

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