I READ Molly Scott Cato MEP’s ‘Government has turned its back on experts over Hinkley’ (September 26).

Only a few months ago I recall watching a live TV debate when a prominent government minister, speaking on behalf of Stronger in Europe, used a similar catch phrase.

She said: “If you want an expert opinion you talk to the experts and not the man down the pub.”

Yet a great deal has happened during that time to suggest that if you want to formulate an impartial opinion, you’re better off talking to the man down at the pub.

I believe the reason for that is because you’re more likely to find the very sort of people who make a successful living applying their reasoned theories with a sound practical application.

People like surgeons, dentists and construction workers are best placed to rip the professional theorists or experts to shreds.

A good example in the run-up to Brexit, the OECD claimed that a vote to withdraw from the EU would be a “major negative shock to the UK economy, akin to a tax on GDP”.

Now those same OECD experts are predicting higher UK growth, having voted for Brexit this year. In another upbeat report, the Office of National Statistics experts concluded “the referendum result appears, so far, not to have had a major impact”.

Most of us could have told them that.

Even the IMF and millions of former pro-EU supporters are rapidly changing their minds and coming round to the chaos in Europe and the potential of Britain becoming a wealthier sovereign state capable of enhancing free health care and education.

The big lesson learnt in the referendum was not to trust the so-called experts.

MIKE FRY

Moorland Crescent, Upton

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