Metro readers still have Brexit on their minds with this week marking three years since the UK left the EU – and the topic is still relevant as ever.
Other issues discussed today include Matt Hancock’s appearance on ITV flagship show Good Morning Britain. This led to the former health secretary being put on Metro’s front page on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, the Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin threat claim also caught the attention of our readers.
Read on to see what else has readers’ brains working overtime.
■ Regarding this week’s third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU, it’s clear that Brexit has broken this country. Our economy and our livelihoods are shrinking. We are the only G7 country not to have recovered from the Covid pandemic and trade with Europe is down.
To help get them out of the mess they created, the Tories now seem to want pensioners to return to work, because so many good workers left the UK because of the Brexit debacle. What next? Children and the disabled to work in factories?
This incompetent and disreputable government needs to go – and the sooner, the better.
We need a moderate government that is effective and whole-nation-oriented. One that is not dominated by an irresponsible Eton-Oxbridge clique who think they have a divine right to rule the country as they wish, for the benefit of a few. Mark, Surrey
■ Government ministers and others have celebrated the anniversary of us leaving the EU by extolling the virtues of our departure.
But what exactly have been the benefits? Is Britain any better off? Have our trade deals with other countries matched or bettered the deal we had with the EU? Does Britain have better control of its borders?
The answer to those questions is a resounding ‘no’. Even Bloomberg has reported that Brexit is costing the economy £100billion a year.
Politicians need to start being honest about the true impact of Brexit. People voted Leave in 2016 to be better off, not worse off. Al, Charlton
■ I will back those teachers on strike (Metro, Wed) all the way. My solution to increase the value of education is to let the teachers teach.
Their role has turned into teacher, social worker, child-safety officer, food provider, family mediator and child sitter. Let them teach rather than require them to do the above without proper representative remuneration.
The three Rs are essential. Playtime should be relabelled as ‘lessons not required’. Maths until they are 18? Bah humbug! Muriel, Kingston
■ Where do the strikers think the money is going to come from to pay for their pay rises? The taxes of those people they’re inconveniencing? TC, London
Phoney Hancock is fooling no one
■ Matt Hancock’s comeback bid was rocked by a disastrous TV appearance as he tried to defend his £320,000 earnings on I’m A Celebrity (Metro, Wed). The former health secretary donated just £10,000 of the fee to charity.
He wanted to show us who he really is by doing I’m A Celebrity. It’s OK, Matt, we already knew who you were when you broke your own lockdown rules. Now you’ve just added ‘insensitive’ and ‘greedy’ to the mix. Talk about digging a hole for yourself, mate. Vanessa, by email
Steady on! Johnson maybe a liar but he’s not quite in Putin’s league
I can agree with Ged Jarvis from Manchester (MetroTalk, Wed) that Vladimir Putin is a ‘monster’ but I cannot agree with his view that he is a lesser liar than Boris Johnson.
This is to do with Moscow denying the former PM’s claim that the Russian president threatened to kill him.
In the months leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, many world leaders had conversations with Putin and he told them all, repeatedly, that he had a no intention of invading.
Here we are, nearly a year later, with him ordering Ukraine be bombed back to the Dark Ages. In those few months Putin told more lies than Johnson ever has. HG, Maidstone
■ Whenever I phone the council or attempt to buy anything by phone, I’m told that my call will be recorded. Am I expected to believe that international conversations between leading political figures, such as Putin and Johnson, are not so routinely recorded? If they are, then there will be evidence of what was actually said, allowing – of course – for losses in translation. Christopher McVey, Bristol
■ Boris Johnson’s claim that Putin threatened to kill him with a missile is yet another manoeuvre to dodge the issue of his involvement in the BBC chairman appointment scandal. How many lies has he told over the years? If Putin’s threat was true, why wait until now to announce it? Nasser, London
■ Putin and Johnson are notorious liars, so good luck in ascertaining the truth here. I do also wonder whether the Russian ‘way with words’ tends to occasionally suffer in translation… Mike Carter, West Sussex
Hell is other people for some staff
■ On my commute yesterday I was hoping to spot just one rail worker so that I could ask for a bit of advice about which route to take. As the old saying goes, the lights were on but nobody was at home.
It put me in mind of something an old workmate once sarcastically said. Some people’s motto in life seems to be, ‘This job would be all right if it weren’t for the customers.’ Dec, Essex
■ Re buses (MetroTalk, Wed), my late parents-in-law lived in Bradford. When I visited, I always used buses. The drivers would wait for people to sit down before driving off. Everyone thanked the driver. Julia, Chesterfield
■ Keith from Potters Bar (MetroTalk, Tue) says that older people never put their feet on train seats. He is so wrong. I’m a retired train guard and I found as many older people as young ones put their feet up. Many would take them down when asked but put them up again once I turned my back. Val, London
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