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Thank you Richard for your interesting post. For me, Brexit means freedom once again to make our own laws on the piecemeal basis we became accustomed to prior to 1973. Clearly some people who voted Brexit will want to repatriate our immigration laws, others our human rights, for me one aspect will be our freedom to spend out taxes on goods produced here, etc etc. The advantages to be had from Brexit are, or will be, many and varied. I do not know if the £350m and £200m per week figures are accurate. I expect that no one can say for sure. But reason dictates that if we no longer have to contribute a net sum, whatever that sum is, to EU finances, that money will become available to spend how our Treasury decides. And if it decides to spend it all on the NHS, all well and good. But at least we shall be free once again to make that choice.

As for public service vehicles, my point is that we seem to have to source them all over EU. But if you go to France they are all Renault, Peugeot or Citroen. In Italy they are all Fiat or Alfa Romeo and in Germany Mercedes, Audi, VW and BMW. When I was in Germany in 2015 I had to have an emergency operation. Thank goodness I had taken my EHIC card! I received a Rolls Royce treatment in the Kilinikum in Friedrichshafen. The German in the next bed to me offered the opinion that i was only getting that, and no one else was, because some Treasury other than Berlin would be paying the bill.

On my way home, by train to Stuttgart and 'plane to Manchester, I passed the Mercedes factory en route from Ulm and reflected on the fact that that is where all Welsh ambulances are manufactured. But on the train from Manchester the two carriages I travelled in were made by Alstom and Siemens respectively. My point is that we have to buy what they manufacture, but they buy locally.

And if our essential supplies, food and energy in particular, are not sourced in the UK how will we be placed when WW3 begins? I doubt if any Poles will come to fly our fighter aircraft given the treatment their airmen in 303 squadron received at the hands of the Attlee government after 1945. And who will man any transatlantic convoys given the treatment the Attlee government meted out to the Chinese merchant seamen of Liverpool in 1946. Those two episodes are a stain on our reputation as a nation, but generally are swept quietly under the carpet.

But, Richard, the fact that Brexiteerts see different advantages in our divorcing ourselves from the EU does not mean that staying on that sinking ship is any the better an idea for all that. It is still sinking. And my prediction for what it is worth is that it will disappear below the waves of anti-EU feeling after the elections of 2017.

Happy New Year!