We’ve wasted millions on nuclear deterrents – but why did we ignore the real threat?

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

250,000 died as a result of our being unprepared for Covid (Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)

It is often said that the prime duty of any government is the safety of its citizens.

Hence why, after assessing the risk to the population from a possible nuclear attack from a hostile power, successive governments have spent billions on our nuclear deterrents. Suggestions that we do otherwise have even been described as treason.

In recent times, an assessment – the Cygnus exercise – was carried out to test the UK’s response to a hypothetical flu pandemic; and recommend measures to be taken to prepare the country for such an event. In the end, it was decided that, unlike our armed defence, we couldn’t afford to implement the recommendations.

So far, not one person has been killed, nor have we realistically been threatened, by a nuclear attack... whereas 250,000 died as a result of our being unprepared for Covid. The resulting financial costs were astronomical – and we even found £34bn for a useless test and trace system.

If only the money had been spent sooner.

Geoff Forward

Stirling

Labour have left the poor to suffer

While we should applaud most of the 40 bills included in the King’s Speech, I feel that it is a massive misstep not to have included an end to the two-child benefit cap. The majority of those families missing out, as a result of this example of Tory cruelty, are the poorest and most in need of all the help they can get from the state.

There is clearly massive support for ditching this rule including from charities, celebrities, and even a few humane Tories. Labour should listen.

David Felton

Crewe

Reform has saved the SNP

The SNP spent much time and energy in the weeks and months before the election urging Scots to make Scotland “Tory-free”. Admittedly, the Scottish Conservatives emerged from the election with one seat less than they had previously had.

That, however, was due to the intervention of Reform UK, without which the Tories might well have netted another two or three seats. It was Reform that saved the SNP from emerging with even fewer seats than the nine they now have. I hope the SNP is duly grateful.

Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh

The health of too many is being left behind

The Independent’s recent article on delaying diabetes highlights individual actions we can all take to improve our health. However, the harm to people’s health is all too often out of their hands and can be highly influenced by geography.

The scandalous reality is that because of things like income, air quality, housing and access to green spaces, where people are from in the UK can cut their life expectancy by up to 16 years. This is what the new government should be focusing on – addressing health inequalities that exist across the country, because far too many parts of the nation risk being “left behind” without policies that support the building blocks of health and wellbeing.

While hugely influential, NHS services are not everything when it comes to improving our health and increasing quality of life. Labour must ensure health inequalities stay high on the political agenda to improve the health of future generations

Paul McDonald

London

A leopard doesn’t change his spots – and neither will Trump

Beware the iron fist in a velvet glove.

Former president Donald Trump has indicated that the recent attempt on his life has caused him to make a dramatic U-turn in his politics, and that he will now be more moderate and less confrontational in his attitude to his country, its people and by extension, the rest of the world...

It is this reader’s opinion that he will do that exactly... until he is elected president again. Should he be so, he will return to his past form. The knock-on effects for the rest of the world if this transpires should give us all real cause for concern.

A leopard doesn’t change his spots.

Richard Grant

Address supplied