Andrew Marr

• WHILE Andrew Marr is right about middle-class users being unaware of the violence among those supplying their drugs, I don’t believe that is the main factor involved, and his complacency over Brexit beggars belief, (Marr: White middle classes ‘don’t see’ knife crime damage, June 20).

First, I doubt the amount of drugs this group accounts for is significant: drug use is much higher in the lower social classes, partly trying to escape their miserable lives as they struggle to survive in austerity Britain.

In any case, a better option is to realise that the “war on drugs” has utterly failed to solve the problem, just as surely as Prohibition in America failed to stop alcohol drinking and created or empowered the Mafia and organised crime, continuing today with harder drugs.

I’d go further: the difficulties caused in the supply chain by the “war” has increased the cost of drugs and added to the violence.

A sensible approach would to decriminalise drug use, bring their supply under control by public health authorities, and help addicts get out of their situations, using proceeds from drug sales to fund the process.

As for Brexit, Mr Marr must know this is entirely a Tory problem which they have happily inflicted on the whole country.

The anger behind the referendum vote came from austerity, which has impacted all of us, especially those in the lower classes who have seen their wages and benefits frozen for a decade or more. But if anyone dares to suggest a tax rise, who screams the loudest? The middle and upper classes of course.

Mr Marr is right to say we forget our history: last century when all countries in Europe were under independent “control” we had two world wars; but since the formation and expansion of the European Union the whole continent has been peaceful, for the longest time in history: as Sir Winston Churchill reportedly said: “to jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war.”

But that was from the days when the Conservative party was run by people with some intelligence, not power-hungry morons.

I see too many echoes of the 1930s to be an optimist; in 10 years’ time we will look up and realise what a disaster Brexit was, leaving Britain as a pawn in the global game, then probably under a financial system run by Google, Amazon and Facebook, or perhaps with war, somewhere in Europe, where new nationalists are already active under the populist label.

Not that Jeremy Corbyn has recognised the reality, and it’s as easy as ABC: Austerity = Brexit = Chaos. The Tories wantonly inflicted Brexit on the UK and will happily destroy the country as its factions continue to fight under whichever of the Brexitheads gets elected in the coming weeks. We need a change of direction and that will require a change of government.

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3