Mrs May needs to earn our trust with facts over Brexit

THERESA May’s message to the United Nations that it must win trust by proving it can deliver is one she would do well to heed herself.

If evidence were needed that the Prime Minister’s dogmatic approach and enthusiasm for government by slogan rang hollow, it was surely provided by the general election result in June. Yet she seems as unwilling as ever to engage meaningfully with the British public about the practicalities and impact of Brexit, insisting that she and her increasingly fractious government must be trusted to give us the best deal possible.

Trust cannot be assumed simply by virtue of claiming it. We need credible, fact-based evidence of what the promised rosiness and sunlit uplands of our post-Brexit future will really look like and how we will get there.

Most supposedly visionary statements are little more than a politician’s vapid, rhetorical flim- flam. And we’ve surely all had a bellyful of that by now.

THE latest Cabinet squabbles make the last days in Adolf Hitler’s bunker look like a model of reasonable behaviour. But given the self-serving incompetence of Boris Johnson among others, is it not time that we make a simple rule that attendance at Eton, and/or the study of philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, and/or membership of the “Union” shall, henceforth, automatically debar that individual from politics?

I’m sure there are useful ways they can recompense for the misfortune of their privileged upbringing but in the same way as former kings and their families are often banned from their ex-kingdoms, let these clowns and their ilk be forever banished.

THE Prime Minister has a simple solution to her problems with her uncontrollable Cabinet, not to mention the whole parliamentary party. She should tell them that unless they get behind her to support her over Brexit — and not push her in front of a bus — she will call another general election.

IN HIS Comment piece (The world awaits Brexit yet the Cabinet carries on squabbling, September 20). Matthew d’Ancona betrays his prejudices about the results of the Brexit talks and the long-term outcomes for this country when he writes about the UK being “one chicken” against “27 foxes…”.

I say the exact opposite is true and that across Europe 27 governments are worried that they are under the leadership of headless chickens, in the guise of Michel Barnier.

It’s one fox and 27 chickens — or perhaps a better description would be one lion and 27 lambs.