SIR – I am an 82-year-old pensioner who is absolutely outraged by David Cameron’s disgusting attempt (Opinion, June 12) to influence my voting intention by suggesting that the various benefits that I enjoy by virtue of my age will be at risk if I do not vote as he wishes me to.
Some of these benefits might well merit scrutiny on their own merits, but to link this to the Brexit question is absolutely despicable, and is little better than an attempt to blackmail the elderly. Mr Cameron is now dredging the lowest depths.
J C Rogers
Camborne, Cornwall
SIR – Mr Cameron makes a threat to cut pensions if it is a Brexit result. I am astonished that if savings are to be made, the pensioners are the victims of choice. Pensioners are a tough lot and their vote will not be swayed by such pronouncements.
Jenni Dawson-Marsh
Lydney, Gloucestershire
SIR – As a small business owner, and Tory voter, I am appalled and embarrassed at the bully-boy tactics that David Cameron has decided to adopt by threatening our pensioner population.
Does he really think that, after surviving a world war, they are so naive as not to see through this shameful threat?
I am constantly surprised by how low Remain can sink. It is another own-goal.
Andrew Warbrick
Market Bosworth, Leicestershire
SIR – Project Fear is now targeting the elderly. Why doesn’t Mr Cameron go the whole hog and suggest that all elderly persons blocking beds in hospital will be thrown out on to the streets in a couple of weeks time if we vote to leave? That should really do it.
Mike Whitfield
Yarm, North Yorkshire
SIR – I had been wavering (In/Out, Out/In). I am now clear in my mind what to do. I will not be and never will be threatened by a young upstart bully and his colleagues.
Paul Wells
Melbury Osmond, Dorset
SIR – The Prime Minister’s claim that the “triple-lock” protecting state pensions is now under threat is yet another cynical attempt at scare-mongering.
If annual pension increases really were under threat, why not make this clear from the outset, rather than tossing it into the argument with 10 days to go to the referendum, at a time when several polls show a clear lead for Brexit?
Peter Baker
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex
SIR – Mr Cameron tells us that pensions are under threat if we vote to leave the EU. The opposite is the case.
The EU is proposing, first, a regulatory regime for pension funds which will make pensions more expensive to save for, or less generous when paid out.
It also proposes a financial transactions tax. This is being presented as a tax on the banks but is in fact a tax on bank customers, the pension funds being a major customer. The result will be a tax on pensions with the proceeds going to the EU.
Mr Cameron is a aware of these matters but does not mention them. Why not?
Ian Musgrave
Laxey, Isle of Man
SIR – The latest from Project Fear is a possible £40 billion black hole, with which to threaten pensioners. Why doesn’t the Leave campaign suggest cancelling HS2? That ought to do the trick !
John Postle
Ormesby, Norfolk
SIR – There is no thought of deferring our overseas aid programme and using that money on British citizens. Why not?
George Gooden
Woodbridge, Suffolk
SIR – At the Facebook live event on the EU referendum, Mr Cameron said: “At a general election you pick a team. If you don’t like them, you can kick them out in five years’ time. With this, we are going to live with this decision.” Quite. There is no better argument for going with Brexit.
Mark Dickson
Runcorn, Cheshire
SIR – Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister might review 20th-century history and find that the British people do not take kindly to bullies who threaten them.
Having discovered this salient fact, please would he tell our Prime Minister, who also seems to have forgotten it? Apologies for troubling the German minister, but Mr Cameron doesn’t appear to be listening to us.
Bob Burgess
Chester
SIR – France shares with the United Kingdom the distinction of being the only European power with global reach. Politically, as countries, we also both share a rare willingness to deploy brave and professional armed forces for the wider good in conditions of uncertainty and risk.
Viewed dispassionately from Paris, the scaremongering that we have seen the British people subjected to makes no sense. Britain will remain a major force after Brexit, a military, security and economic power that its neighbours will want to cooperate with on close and friendly terms.
We believe that Britain, like France, has an important role to play in the world. It will not be diminished by leaving the EU, but will act as a beacon for those across Europe who see the nation-state as the cornerstone of democracy and well-being.
Instead, a Leave vote will apply screeching brakes to the push for integration of the armed forces of the EU’s member states, and the otherwise inevitable and dangerous development of a “common defence” as the treaties predict.
With a vote for Brexit, de Gaulle’s far-seeing view of Britain will have been vindicated. But Churchill’s too.
Vice Admiral Michel Debray
Rear Admiral Claude Gaucherand
Paris
