REGARDING True blue’s letter Euro Advice referring to me, (Review, October 23) I do not admit to being pedantic although it is true I try to focus on facts.

Of course there is a fine line between the two. True Blue provides no facts to support a vote to stay in the EU (supporters of this costly, anti-

democratic, unauditable, overly bureaucratic institution rarely do) but simply says: ‘If the CBI, David Cameron, the Bank of England, and George Osbourne (potentially the best Chancellor since the war) think it is a good idea to remain members of a modified EU then why should we listen to Mr Atkinson?” as though those he quotes can be relied upon for good advice.

Firstly, though, I am surprised that True Blue is aware of the CBI’s, DC’s, BoE’s and GO’s views on ‘a modified EU’, not least because, as yet, we do not have one to take a view on. In fact, we do not even know what a ‘modified EU’ might look like.

Secondly, it might be worth looking at the credibility of the view makers he refers to, so I do so in the order he refers.

Firstly, the CBI. This is a collection of mostly large and often international companies for whom a low-wage workforce is a real advantage.

Siemans UK (the UK off-shoot of the German company) would of course like us to stay in. One can understand why that would be good for them; while at the same time not being good for the UK workforce.

Secondly, David Cameron. He is the man who promised he would reduce annual immigration to tens of thousands.

In fact, it has been in the hundreds of thousands since then and reached record highs.

It seems to me that either he was ignorant of the fact that we cannot control EU immigration or he was lying. I make no judgement on those options but it is clear his view can sometimes be flawed.

Thirdly, the Bank of England is of course the very body which failed to see the credit crunch and economic slowdown coming.

My own company did and took protective action for its shareholders and survived. Many others failed because of the failure of Bank of England forecasts.

Also, their Mervyn King infamously tried to drive UK interest rates down to facilitate joining the Euro but fortunately he failed.

We now see why we are pleased he did. I’m sure they do their best but clearly relying on their views is sometimes far from wise.

Finally, our wonderful Chancellor George Osbourne. Was it not he, who with DC in 2010, promised to balance the UK books by this year?

Of course he now presides over an economy with the biggest peace-time debt ever, and he continues to take the UK deeper into debt.

In the light of those economic facts, (economics being his expertise) I wonder if his political views on our EU membership should hold more weight than his failed economic ones? I suggest not.

I conclude with general advice for True Blue and indeed others: If you do not want to think things through for yourself, then it might be wise to take care which role models you choose to form them for you.

– Tom Atkinson, Lydney.