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In and out in no time

My wife was referred to the hospital for an X-ray so I took a book with me that I have been meaning to re-read for a long time (Alfred Williams, Villages of the White Horse).

It took us 10 minutes to get parked after taking a ticket, which is par for the course up there. As we entered I asked one of the helpers to show me where the X-ray department was and it took him nearly 30 seconds to point to the door that was 10 feet away from me and say turn right, turn left and you are there.

We entered and the lady on the computer stopped what she was doing, took Hazel’s particulars at once and we were sat down in seconds. Now for a good read I thought.

I got to p2 and they called Hazel in. A few minutes later, and me only on p5, out she came and said ‘let’s go’.

On the way out I made a complaint to the two ladies on the reception desk: “How do you expect me to get this book finished if you have this sort of efficiency?” They said sorry, but both were smiling so I do not think they meant it.

To add insult to injury, when I put my ticket into the machine to pay it refused to take any money off me as I had not been there long enough.

My only regret is that Alfred will have to wait.

Roy Cartwright, Covingham

Brexit vote not valid

Yet again today (July 17, 2018) we see both local Tory MPs claiming that Brexit is the democratic will of the people.

This comes just a few days after the Information Commissioners Office stated it was conducting investigations into several breaches of the Data Protection laws by the Leave Campaign and that they had fined Facebook half a million pounds for its role in the events of 2016, and on the morning that the Electoral Commission announced that it had fined the Leave Campaign £61,000 for breaching electoral law and referred two individuals from the Leave Campaign for criminal prosecution.

Is this really the democratic will of the people? It is about time both our local Tory MPs stopped parroting the party line and started addressing these and other issues which pose very serious questions about the validity of the 2016 referendum result.

Adam Poole, Savill Crescent, Wroughton

...let us all vote again

We live in what is supposed to be a ‘representative’ democracy, which means that we elect members of the House of Commons to take decisions and make policy.

However, the Cameron administration used the device of a referendum to try to resolve splits in the Tory Party. When Parliament agreed to the referendum on EU membership this meant that our representatives had abrogated their responsibility even though the Brexit vote was legally only advisory.

Following this non-binding vote, the May administration did not even want to involve Parliament in its Brexit negotiations and decisions. At least this decision has been rejected.

The case for having a second referendum on the terms of Brexit has to be given back to the electorate at large. Justine Greening made the unanswerable case for such a vote with the three options, of approving whatever deal eventually emerges, going for the disastrous ‘no deal’ or staying with the status quo (ie remain).

It just shows the blinkered mentality of the three local pro-Brexit MPs that they reject this approach, which would ensure that the next vote could be held when everyone has all the facts and not the lies and misleading campaigns of the 2016 referendum.

Tony Mayer, Wheatlands, Haydon Wick