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Your support makes all the difference.“Trust the people” was the momentary empty slogan of convenience for the prime ministerial cronies. Those same people might think that informed choice should be the gift of the information age, but then there is Brexit.
Now Andrea Leadsom suggests the trustworthy “people” are somehow not up to the task of making an informed choice about Brexit (yet again), and would be too scared to be graced with the Operation Yellowhammer dossier, which the impartial civil service spent at least an afternoon preparing, presumably. Then again, maybe parliament would be too scared to go through the report on the timid “people’s” behalf, it being suspended and all.
So, really, then, “the people should trust Boris” would be a more accurate slogan, if not as catchy? Perhaps we should realise the people are not some homogenous group that immediately decided to agree with whatever it is Johnson and his government don’t trust us with today, and recognise that we are all as divided as parliament is by Brexit, and that keeping parliament and public in the dark isn’t likely to help.
Ian Henderson
Norwich
The Tory party is doomed
With the ruling of the Court of Session, it is to be hoped that the Tory party membership now realises that their chosen saviour has brought the party into disrepute. It suggests that the prime minister’s advice to the Queen was illegal. She has been cynically manipulated in her 94th year. He must apologise to her and resign as her first minister. As lord president of the council and leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg should also apologise to her and resign that first role, probably also the second, unless he wants to be remembered as the mis-leader of the House. Or else the Tory party is doomed.
Philip Mitchell
Winchester
For services to stubborn selfishness
After following cricket for more than 45 years, I can confidently say that the last cricketer from England or Wales that should receive a knighthood is Geoffrey Boycott.
If our former prime minister knows anything about cricket, she would know that he was considered a selfish player by his peers and, in my opinion, everyone – including casual followers – knew he was the antithesis of a team-player.
Perhaps Theresa May was heavily occupied at the Maidenhead jumble sale when news of his domestic violence conviction was announced in 1998 (which he has always denied). Likewise, her advisers. Or maybe she just ignored them. My money would be on the latter.
Let us hope that this example of another dreadful honour is shortly rescinded.
Robert Boston
Kingshill
Harman for speaker
Although there are some very good candidates for the role as the new speaker, my vote would go to Harriet Harman, the mother of the house.
I feel she would be unifying force and has certainly earned this prestigious job by her unstinting tenure in the House of Commons as a longstanding MP and former minister.
I will personally miss John Bercow and his unstuffy modus operandi. As a compulsive viewer of BBC Parliament, I always found him worth paying my licence fee for. But there are new challenges coming up and I think Harman will fit the bill, although she might have to practice her “order, order” to control the ever increasing and noisy rabble to sit on these revered benches.
Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth
How to solve knife crime
One way to reduce the heinous level of knife crime is to ban the sale of all pointed knives. The purpose of a knife is to be used as a cutting utensil; there is no purpose in having a pointed end. If all knives were designed with blunt, curved ends, the number of knife crimes can only reduce.
Christopher Learmont-Hughes
Wirral
Bring back pens and paper
I was mesmerised by your report on the need to thwart cheating in exams. The advancement of technology has unleashed a barrage of exam malpractice. I feel nostalgic about the old days when pen and paper examinations were the norm. Now some universities, presumably in their pursuit of cash, facilitate cheating by asking students to submit essays and dissertations online without examinations as part of their degrees, not knowing whether assignments are done by students or others. Time to restore trust in the examination system.
Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2
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