The Labour Party isn’t the lesser of two evils any more

Though Labour opportunistically pretended to oppose the abolition of the 45p rate of income tax, it supported everything else that even Jeremy Hunt has felt the need to reverse.

Had the mini-Budget ever been put to a Commons division, then Labour’s whipped abstention would have saved Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. Labour is the only party that still thinks that Trussonomics was a good idea.

Keir Starmer vs Rishi Sunak will result in a hung parliament. Those of us who seek to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace need to hold the balance of power.

Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case, the Labour Party is not.

David Lindsay County Durham

No arithmetic, no vote

With reference to Kit Yates’s piece (Using maths in real life will make so many things add up, Voices, Sunday), it has long been my contention that nobody should be allowed to vote – or ideally even have children – without being able to pass a basic maths exam with a particular focus on statistics.

“Oh, I’m hopeless with numbers” should be an embarrassing admission that few would need to make. But in the absence of that harsh logic, let’s have an NHS with neither queues nor idle resources; let’s have no schools below average; let’s send 50 per cent to university so they’ll all be the new 10 per cent.

Churchill’s observation that democracy is the worst system of government apart from all the others that have been tried seems surprisingly questionable in 2022.

Steve Rencontre Address supplied

Lacking in compassion

I really liked last weekend’s Voices Dispatches newsletter. Thank you.

It would be good for the consciousness of the public, or “ordinary people” as politicians like to call us, to be raised so folk can see that the language used by many Conservative politicians is a form of brainwashing and shows a total lack of human compassion.

Somehow I feel it ironic that the parents of Braverman, Patel and Sunak, to name a few, were immigrants and welcomed to the UK – yet their offspring seems to lack compassion for those fleeing persecution.

I admit to being in my eighties. I have seen many immigrants arriving in this country, many of whom have contributed to our NHS and social care for example. I’m glad there are journalists willing to challenge the politicians and also the “blinkered” people in our society.

Christine Briffitt Warwick

Wendy Morton

I don’t know the answer to this and would welcome the views of those who know him. Would Gavin Williamson have used the

same language to a male chief whip?

Catherine Levett Beckenham

Swimming in sewage

Your article on predicted flooding in the UK is timely and important but misses a critical piece of the jigsaw: what about the water companies?

These privatised monopolies are continually discharging raw sewage into our rivers and seas because – they tell us – their sewers cannot cope with both foul and surface water. No apology. No plan to remedy the situation.

So here’s what I suggest: every water company be required by statute to use at least 50 per cent of its annual operating profit to provide surface-water sewers, until there is capacity at least equal to foul water sewers.

I shall be looking for this – or something equivalent – in party manifestos for the next election.

Helen Bore Scarborough

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