Parliament is drifting in the doldrums while voters itch for a political life after Theresa May

SIR – As this parliamentary session drags on in the dog days of Theresa May’s premiership, at what stage will the Speaker tell MPS that they can bring games in? Simon Baumgartner

East Molesey, Surrey

SIR – The Conservative Party should start the process to elect its next leader (and prime minister) immediately. Thus the new man will be ready the moment Mrs May resigns. Peter R Davies

Kingsclere, Hampshire

SIR – The announcement of a date on which Mrs May will announce her date of departure reminds me of the young couple who announced they would be getting engaged in a few months’ time. Peter Humphreys

Oxton, Wirral

SIR – I am a fervent supporter of “no deal”, so the Brexit Party currently represents my view more closely than the Conservatives, the party of which I have been an active, loyal but not uncritical member since 1981.

Many are rightly asking whether my party can survive the deep political hole it has dug for itself. I believe it can. The party survived greater splits over the Corn Laws, Imperial Preference and Appeasement. In my lifetime, it has recovered from the recession of the early Eighties, the poll tax disaster, the ERM fiasco and sleaze. It can do so again.

Voting for any other party can only assist those who desire the election of a Marxist government, the break-up of the United Kingdom and the betrayal of Brexit. I have concluded that it is too soon to give up on the world’s oldest, most successful political party. Philip Duly

Haslemere, Surrey

SIR – We who voted Conservative at the last general election did so believing the party’s manifesto promises. It was the party of Brexit. Those promises have been broken and we have seen absence of leadership, duplicitous MPS, and an ill-disciplined and dysfunctional Government. Hence the popularity of the Brexit Party.

Any new Conservative leader who tries an alliance with the Brexit Party will incinerate the Conservative Party. The new leader will therefore have to steal the Brexit Party’s popularity and agenda. But who will believe them? That is the mountain to climb.

Of all the candidates, Boris Johnson is the only one with the street cred and charisma to be believed. He can also instil into all sections of society a lost pride in ourselves as an outwardlooking, progressive, self-governing nation at peace with ourselves and open for business to the world. That may be why he has so many detractors in the bear pit of Westminster.

Boris Johnson as PM might just be able to win a general election. Michael H Richards

Bicester, Oxfordshire

SIR – In normal historic times, the Tories would be mad to elect Boris Johnson as leader; in these abnormal times of potential crisis, they would be mad not to elect him as leader. Ben Howkins

Staverton, Northamptonshire

SIR – Mrs May to go soon. Talks with Labour ended. Boris Johnson announces candidature. Brexit Party to revive faith in democracy. Smug, anti-democratic MPS given a beating.

Things are looking up at last. Paul Strong

Claxby, Lincolnshire

SIR – If, as you report, the grassroots are leaning strongly towards Boris Johnson for the new PM, what happens if our delightful MPS don’t include him on their shortlist of two? Peter Ratcliffe

Brading, Isle of Wight

SIR – Mrs May is the Iphigenia to be sacrificed, or exiled, if the Trojan War (Brexit campaign) is to be won. Iphigenia in Tories, one might say. Nicholas Shrimpton

Oxford