Is the British public really going to be hoodwinked again by the Conservative Party?

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After her latest figures, if Braverman gets her bill through the Commons, then surely she has won the numbers game? (UK Parliemant/AFP)

Are the British public really going to be hoodwinked again by the outrageous figures bandied about by members of the Conservative Party?

We had the over-inflated figures of £350m a week that Brexit was going to allow us to give to the NHS. Instead, our health service is on its knees due to chronic underfunding.

We had the former prime minister, Boris “Honest” Johnson, who was on the campaign committee of Vote Leave, telling us that 76 million Turkish citizens could be headed for our shores if we didn’t leave the EU. We all knew then that Turkey was never going to join the EU, but why let mere facts get in the way of an impressive-sounding number?

Now, in a desperate bid not to be outdone by her predecessors, we have the delightful Suella “Compassionate” Braverman, who has come up with the biggest figure yet. Billions, no less, of the world’s people are going to head to our shores if the government can’t pass their latest crazy scheme that will have no effect on immigration figures. If she gets her bill through the commons, then surely she has won the numbers game? Surely it has to be the third time not lucky for this appalling succession of Tory governments?

Karen Brittain

York

Tory stooges at the helm of the BBC

The Gary Lineker issue looked to be a rather crude attempt by the Tory government to silence a critic of their hugely controversial refugee strategy. There are echoes of the 1930s, in that policy and in the inflammatory rhetoric Suella Braverman has used to justify her mismanagement of the migrant issue.

She used inaccurate and misleading statements to justify her heavy-handed treatment of the migrants arriving in small boats. She claimed “there are 100 million people around the world who could qualify for protection under our current laws. Let’s be clear. They are coming here.”

Let’s be clear: they are not!

We are stuck with an underqualified, second-rate politician as home secretary who has been over-promoted through the turmoil within the Tory government. Even Braverman admits she may break the law with her latest proposals.

The Gary Lineker issue is being used as a distraction from all this. But what is infuriating many people is hypocrisy and double standards that mean Lineker has been singled out for his compassion by the same company currently chaired by Richard Sharp. Appointed by Boris Johnson after having donated £400,000 to the Conservative Party, apparently Sharps’s position doesn’t violate the same rules that Lineker’s tweet did.

Impartiality matters in political journalism, but in football pundits it is markedly less significant. Surely it is much more important that the chairman and director general of the BBC are seen to be impartial with no links to any political party or figures.

The unwise overreaction by these two men has revealed the way the right-wing Tories have successfully infiltrated the BBC. We have two Tory stooges at the helm of the BBC. Another aspect of Boris Johnson’s toxic legacy.

Andrew Milroy

Address Supplied

Jumping on the bandwagon

So, Fiona Bruce is the latest victim of modern-day witch hunters. She is accused of minimising domestic violence by quoting somebody else regarding an accusation against Stanley Johnson for reasons of legal balance.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop others from creating their own narrative which is often false. Of course these days it is social media that decides who is guilty. What an intolerant society we have become with hate and division whipped up into a frenzy, all because too much media is negating people’s ability to think for themselves. Jumping on the bandwagon is much easier.

Richard Whiteside

Halifax

Hunt has a clear choice in the Budget

Hunt could help those in need who are struggling to pay their bills, or he could continue to back multi-millionaires and non-doms who fail to pay their fair contribution. Hunt could scrap business rates and allow high streets to thrive once again, or he could let small businesses continue to struggle.

Hunt could opt for a mission-driven government that would secure the highest sustained growth for Britain in the G7, or he could just let our country plod on as a second-rate economy just avoiding recession. And Hunt could continue with his political leveling-up nonsense, or he could announce a growth plan for every town and city across the UK that would target geographical inequality and create thousands of new jobs.

Hunt’s choice is simple. Is he going to be “for the many” as Keir Starmer and Labour would be, or – as I suspect – is he yet again going to be for the few; namely his rich millionaire friends, some of whom donate big sums to the Conservative Party?

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Biden backs fossil fuels

I was appalled and disgusted to read that Joe Biden has given licences to fossil fuel companies to drill for oil and gas in huge areas of public land in the Arctic, causing decades of climate damage and poisoning food sources for the Alaskan Indigenous peoples.

Not the first time.

He also gave companies license to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico – in an area twice the size of Florida – a few days after the UN Climate Conference in Scotland in November 2021. So much for the US being a climate leader.

Where’s John Kerry now? Unbelievable how these unscrupulous politicians stubbornly hang onto climate-destroying fossil fuels, year after year. Subsidising more extraction; giving climate-wrecking companies more money than they will ever invest in clean, renewable energy; refusing to spend money on cleaning up and reducing their own emissions, the list goes on!

Playing with the future survival of humanity with such grossly irresponsible decisions is so bad – I don’t know what to say.

Genevieve Forde

Address Supplied