Are the Conservatives trying to destroy their own party?

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The Conservative Party may have already shot themselves in the foot for the next general election (PA)

Poor old Rishi Sunak, he must be agonising over the almost continuous list of his rule-breaking, even law-breaking, MPs. This week the headline act is Peter Bone who, I add without irony, will not be the last one caught with his trousers down. Although he denies all impropriety.

In second place must be Andrew Cooper, who despite standing in the Tamworth by-election seems to think it is appropriate to use profanity against parents who use food banks!

The prime minister, hoping discipline improves, could push the general election back until January 2025 (John Rentoul’s latest article is a powerful argument for this). Yet, with their introduction of the unnecessary ID rules for voters, the Conservative Party may have already shot themselves in the foot. I doubt older people (a high percentage of Tory voters) will be enthused by the prospect of queuing even longer than normal in bad weather due to checks.

Sometimes I truly wonder if the Tories, collectively and singularly, are attempting to undermine their party’s very existence.

Robert Boston

Kent

Show us what you really think

So, not content with one right-wing Tory maverick, Peter Bone, being suspended this week, we have now found out what these politicians really think about people struggling to make ends meet.

Step forward Tamworth Tory by-election candidate Andrew Cooper who was this week caught out attacking struggling people just for having £30-a-month phone contracts. Forgive me, but if these same people are supposed to be looking for a job or better paid work then a phone is the sort of thing that is a necessity.

Surely, this in itself proves that the nasty side of the Conservative Party has reared its ugly head yet again and that if people want real help getting work or even just getting on in life, only the Labour Party meets their needs.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

Is this the best plan?

It is gratifying that Scotland is so awash with money that we can afford extra expenditure while reducing our revenues. An extra £300m is available to try to reduce NHS waiting times, even if a projected reduction of 100,000 isn’t of great significance when the latest figures show over 650,000 people on waiting lists. £500,000 is to be spent on survivors of domestic abuse and £400,000 on redeveloping Aberdeen’s Union Street. A new offshore wind supply chain will receive up to £500m.

Meantime, council tax is to be frozen next year. An intelligent guess would be that, as a result, councils will have to cut services. With no extra revenue streams proposed, this all sounds very rash.

But hark! There is a solution: the Scottish government will issue bonds to encourage investment, preferably from overseas. As a country whose finances are constantly in deficit, Scotland will have to offer an attractive rate of interest to investors, not least when investors realise that His Majesty’s Government will not act as guarantor for any Scottish bond.

Does anyone seriously think this is a viable financial plan?

Jill Stephenson 

Edinburgh

A new future

The world is burning and we are heading for a climate catastrophe. In some regions people are starving because of droughts, as others drown in endless floods. Yet we continuously stoke wars with no accountability for adding to this catastrophe, with no accountability for the misery and death these wars cause. Frankly, it’s sickening.

Is it not time that we sweep away the old men who have run this planet into the ground, the profiteers who encourage these disasters, and find a way to create a future that will be survivable?

Gunter Straub

London

Charity is big business for some

The origins of the charity movement used to be committed people working freely for a cause they believed in. Charities now seem to be big business.

It seems to me that the motivation of charities is first of all to cover the inflated salaries of the management. Scandals appear more frequently than is comfortable. The whole system is open to abuse and regulation seems generally weak. Charities need to be made transparent in terms of management structure, salaries and more importantly how much in every pound or donation actually gets to where it is aimed.

Nicholas Mitchell

West Sussex