The majority of us should be paying more for food and energy

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

It is right that we should pay more – the moment of truth has been coming for years (Getty)

The government should not be offsetting the cost of food and energy for middle and upper income earners. The costs of both have been artificially held down for decades, by ignoring externalities such as climate change and soil degradation, and by outsourcing other costs to developing countries, primary producers in our own country, and future generations.

These subsidies in turn encourage thoughtless and wasteful use of limited resources. It is right that we should pay more – the moment of truth has been coming for years, and now it has finally arrived.

But we absolutely should protect the poorest in society, so that they do not have to choose between heating and eating. Another uplift to universal credit is urgently required. The rest of us need to change our ways.

Rachael Padman

Newmarket, Suffolk

Privatisation

I see that Boris Johnson, whose government is attempting to drive through an Elections Bill which will make it mandatory for voters to carry official identification, is now threatening to “privatise the arse” out of the Passport Office and the DVLA.

Am I alone in envisaging a future in which obtaining a passport or a driving licence has become considerably more expensive than the procedures are at present?

With his failure to follow proper parliamentary process and our unwritten constitution, his attempt to prorogue parliament itself, his packing of the House of Lords with stooges, his repeated smirking lies to MPs and the electorate, and now this threat to privatise access to voting, it can be no exaggeration to state that Johnson truly represents an existential threat to democracy in this country.

How much longer will Conservative ministers tolerate him besmirching the good name of their party while undermining our country’s institutions? No wonder he wants to outlaw protest.

Julian Self

Wolverton

Unfairly distracted

Coming back with my husband on the Tube this evening after a lovely meal to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I realised, to my horror, that I had been unconsciously crossing and uncrossing my legs for some time.

I don’t know what I was thinking and apologise unreservedly to anyone on the District line train to Ealing around 11pm who found themselves unfairly distracted – although most of you were effortlessly asleep.

Beryl Wall

London

Remarks about Angela Rayner

On the face of it, it would appear that the remarks quoted in The Mail on Sunday about Angela Rayner’s legs were merely misogynistic.

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But, on further reflection, could we not infer that this is an unwitting confession about the  unnamed Tory MP’s own focus of attention, and a revelation of what they see as the priorities of the prime minister?

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire

Working from home

John Murray suggests in Letters that the prime minister buys Jacob Rees-Mogg a one-way ticket to Rwanda to prevent him continuing his back to work crusade. This is a wonderful fantasy.

I have an alternative fantasy suggestion. The PM should put Rees-Mogg in a hotel in a commuter town for a month and require him to be at his desk in Westminster by 8.30am each day, having used rush hour public transport to get there.

If he manages this, only then would he be allowed to make any more public comments about working from home.

Alan Pack

Canterbury