Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Honda crying wolf

Honda UK will face a bill of £2.1m according to HMRC (note Honda is not making the assertion) SA 26 June. Honda does claim that it will be required to handle 60,00 additional customs declarations, but let’s put this claim into perspective. Currently Honda UK, possibly through its shipping agent, already fills in customs paperwork despite the UK being a member of the Customs Union; what Honda will now be required to do is fill in a number of boxes which currently they ignore – hardly an onerous task.

Costs associated with change are an integral part of business and Brexit is only one of many faced by businesses. In May of this year the EU inspired General Data Protection Regulation Compliance (GDPR) came into effect. According to research an alarming few hundred thousand businesses in Britain risk receiving fines after they failed to allocate a sufficient level of funds to ensure they are compliant with new data protection regulation due to be implemented in May 2018. I’m sure Honda UK is not one of those ill prepared companies as they will have allocated whatever resource was required and paid whatever consultancy costs were incurred. I don’t recollect hearing any complaints from them about having to undertake such a mammoth task.

Of far greater importance is the fact that the UK Government has repeatedly made it clear that they wish to maintain a frictionless border between the EU countries and the UK. On the other hand Mr Barnier and his bureaucrat friends in Brussels have been absolutely firm in their stated view that ‘there can be no such thing’.

It is to be hoped that Honda, BMW, Audi et al are placing pressure on the Government of France and of Germany to rein in Mr Barnier’s wilder ideas.

Sadly I see no sign of this axis of power doing anything to promote a Free Trade Agreement with their nearest neighbour and the destination of such a large value of their exports.

If I was a German, French, Spanish or Italian car worker I would be very afraid of the consequences of a no deal Brexit.

Des Morgan, Caraway Drive, Swindon

There’s a life in there

After 21 days a baby in the womb has a heartbeat, seven weeks the baby has brainwaves, you can distinctly see the formation of head, eyes, fingers, toes and clearly a baby in the womb is recognisable.

Today babies are born at 22-23 weeks and live. They can be legally aborted at 24 weeks and much later if disability is discovered.

Nine weeks after fertilisation nerve receptors in face, hands and soles of feet can sense light touch.

Mothers will feel baby kicking at 16-20 weeks, sucking their thumb, scratching their noses and yawning; and born adult people with a twisted moral ideology will call this baby a “foetus” and deny that baby the right to life that they themselves enjoy.

Pro abortion advocates will use the word “foetus” to dehumanise the baby to justify killing it.

I notice in Peter Smith’s response that he has used the term “pro choice” instead of “pro abortion”; what is it about abortion that’s so bad you don’t want to use the term “pro abortion”, Peter?

Yes, my faith does play a part on this issue, and because we are made in his image, every abortion hurts the heart of God, and I thank him every day that he sent his Son to die on a cross, so that I did not have to.

Now that is real love and forgiveness.

May this nation comprehend just what a sacrifice he made for us all, and when they do, our fear-ridden mixed up society will be utterly transformed and infinitely the better for it.

Steve Jack, Parsonage Court, Highworth

Gong for a burton

Re Unexpected honour ( Adver. 22/6/18 Daphne Breakspear). She states: ‘Mr Adams does not have his facts correct.’ Really?

I repeat: Honours List recipients are either phoned or written to beforehand. Otherwise a gong might land upon a recipient’s lap who does not want one! Such people do exist - more than you realise. Common sense really.

Check it out on, among others, the BBC website.

Perhaps the shock of not being invited to visit Liz Windsor in person has affected her memory. She claims to be “deeply offended” by the tone of my letter. The editor wasn’t and no-one else has complained.

Has it not occured to her that royalists and recipients of the risible Honours List, such as herself, deeply offend our hard-won democracy?

The Queen is symbolic of a past Imperial age, a country long gone. It’s time the whole panto followed.

The royal panto should stop forthwith and the third of a billion pounds they get should be rerouted to the ailing NHS and the police released to fight serious crime.

Jeff Adams, Bloomsbury, Swindon

Face up to your fears

Did you know that nearly a third of people (32%) in the South West are most scared of spiders and heights? This July, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) is challenging the nation to face their fears and raise money for life saving research into heart and circulatory disease.

Every year, heart and circulatory diseases including heart attack, stroke and vascular dementia kill around 14,700 in the South West. Today, more than 650,000 people in the region are living with these serious illnesses.

We urgently need to find new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat these terrible conditions.

That’s why I’m calling on everyone in the South West to join me this July in signing up to the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) Face a Fear campaign to help fund our fearless researchers.

There will be a pint of blood, sweat and fears when I conquer my phobia of needles by donating blood. Knowing I’m helping people in more ways than one is what I will think about to get me through.

So whether its spiders or snakes that leave you squirming, or dizzying heights that have you frozen with fear, it’s time to look fear in the eye and say ‘No more’.

It won’t be easy, but every courageous pound you raise by facing your fears is crucial in funding the cutting-edge breakthroughs we need to end the devastation caused by heart disease.

Your heart will race and your legs will wobble, but at the end of it, you’ll feel on top of the world. You’ll overcome something. You’ll conquer an enemy.

So join me this July - put your courage to the ultimate test and get sponsored to beat heartbreak forever. Sign up today at bhf.org.uk/faceafear

Adrian Adams, British Heart Foundation, London

Don’t blame Brexit

Farmers, produce growers etc are continuously blaming Brexit for the shortage of unskilled migrant workers. They need to look at the bigger picture.

These jobs are mostly minimum wage and if they were to do a 40-hour week it works out at a net income of approximately £1200 per month.

On this wage there is absolutely no prospect of getting on the property ladder, leaving renting a property as the only option.

After rent, council tax and utility bills it would leave them with absolutely nothing to live on.

So just maybe it has nothing to do with Brexit at all but the ridiculously high cost of living here.

Miss K Collins, Lyndhurst Crescent, Swindon

Wasting our money

Your article on Saturday 23rd June “Confusion in court for Romanian defendant” sums up how bad membership of the EU is.

The suspected thief could neither speak nor understand English and the case had to be sent to a court in Milton Keynes.

What a waste of thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s money. We would be better off using the money to send him back to where he came from as he obviously has no intention of contributing to our society.

My tin hat is ready for the PC brigade replies!

Jan Sturgess, Grange Drive, Swindon