The Spectator

Letters | 1 August 2019

Poppycock

Sir: Last week’s lead article (‘Boris begins’, 27 July) suggested that if we leave without a deal, ‘the Johnson government will have another huge challenge on its hands — how to avert large-scale economic damage’. I have some experience of the conduct of economic policy, and I hope you will forgive me for saying that this is poppycock.

Leaving the EU without a trade deal will cause some short-term disruption, but the essence of good government is to do what is best for the medium and long term, whatever the short-term difficulties. And although the main purpose of Brexit is political — i.e. self-government — the economic consequences will be hugely positive, not least through regaining our regulatory autonomy. It should be clear to the meanest intelligence that if there were any economic case for EU membership, the EU (an overtly political project) would not be the world’s economic basket-case, which it is.
Nigel Lawson

London SW1

Bad cops

Sir: Rod Liddle nails it when he says: ‘We’ve made morons of our police force’ (27 July). There are numerous examples in recent years where police forces have unquestioningly swallowed whole every diversity, gender, inclusivity and race shibboleth and have lost their way. Take the example of Northamptonshire police, which went from helmets to baseball caps ‘to attract non-binary’ recruits, or the Met police which suspended an officer for using the term ‘whiter than white’ in a briefing.

I hope the new policing minister is able to inject some common sense back in. He might start by reversing the decision that all police will have to be graduates. We need hard-nosed, old-fashioned coppers — a term that would probably make many chief constables wince. If Boris Johnson is keen to recruit 20,000 more police in the short-term, he might turn to the many young men and women who have left the armed services as a result of defence cuts.

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