It would appear that we wouldn’t need to leave the EU to lose our hard-won rights for workers (This is a brutal and inhumane way to treat staff – and Sports Direct is not alone, 8 June); just unfettered zero-hours contracts, a low-paid workforce terrified of becoming unemployed, and people like Mike Ashley running the whole thing. Rights? What rights?
Diane Janicki
Oldham
• Will a Brexit legal challenge to the extension of voter registration go all the way to the European court (Cameron accused of bias as extension to vote deadline expected, 9 June)?
Harold Mozley
York
• Marciano? Ali? The debate goes on (Letters, 8 June). It was Malky Munro, Glasgow journalist and Joe Louis fan, who, on being introduced to Ali at a function with “Mr Munro, meet The Greatest”, replied “Nice to meet you, Joe.” Ali replied, with a mock narrowing of the eyes, “Listen, buddy, when I pick up the tab, I get to make the funnies.” I’m sure Malky, like most others touched by the great man, eventually came round.
Jack Collins
Edinburgh
• Reading Christina Patterson’s article (Memorising poetry is an art of the heart, 8 June) reminded me of A-level English classes with Margaret Higginson, headteacher at Bolton School in the 1960s. She advised us to learn as much poetry as we could while young, because our brain cells would start dying after the age of 20. More importantly, she said that remembering poetry would always sustain and comfort us in times of trouble and loneliness, even if we were in prison! (I’m sure she didn’t imagine that any of us had criminal tendencies, but she would have hoped that we would risk prison for a principle.)
Eryl Freestone
London
• Lindsay Mackie (Opinion, 7 June) laments the loss of BHS and reminds us of many fine department stores up and down the country. Belfast boasts Robinson & Cleaver, the now defunct Anderson and McAuley and Brands and Normans, where my great uncle Bertie checked the ladies’ handbags for security when they entered the store during the Troubles. He was over 70 at the time. The alleyway behind his terraced house was known as the entry.
Barbara Patterson
Leatherhead, Surrey
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