Maybe the UK needs someone like Elon Musk to tighten spending

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

Maybe the UK needs someone like Elon Musk (“Elon Musk considers funding Nigel Farage’s populist party, a move that could shake up UK politics” – Thursday 19 December) – not Musk himself, obviously – but a real human being to oversee government expenditure.

Hardly a day goes by when we are told we can’t afford this or that policy, even if it had been manifested, when at the same time we learn of yet more instances of seemingly unnecessary waste.

Today, for example, we read that we have just spent more than £118m to refurbish our embassy in Washington. It must have been really tacky. And we are reminded of the £100m miraculously found to build a bat shed on the HS2 route.

These may seem like trifling sums, but as we say north of the border: many a mickle makes a muckle.

Geoff Forward

Stirling, Scotland

A Nobel Prize for Gisèle Pelicot

Two news items horrify me. While I am not too bothered that the Tate brothers have dodged paying their tax bill (“Andrew and Tristan Tate forced to pay more than £2m over ‘serial tax evasion’” – Wednesday 18 December), I am totally disgusted that they can earn £20m pedalling hate.

Where does this money come from? Do their several million followers pay them? Do companies pay them to advertise on their social media account? If so please name such companies.

The second item of horror is, of course, the events leading to the conviction of many men for rape. This is not simply a French matter but an international problem that will not go away when it drops from the front page.

Gisele’s courage and words asking for respect between the sexes deserve a permanent reminder, a Nobel Peace Prize.

Robert Murray

Nottingham, East Midlands

Not a clue

Quick response to the article by David Lynch on Saturday (“Nigel Farage ‘hasn’t got a clue’ how to fix the economy, says Rachel Reeves” – Saturday 21 December) – neither do you luv.

The word that springs to mind where both Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are concerned is “delusional”, the dictionary definition of which is: holding false beliefs or judgements about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Having faulty judgement. Severely mistaken.

It may well be that Nigel Farage doesn’t have a clue about how to fix the economy but that is neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is, neither do Reeves or Starmer.

Reeves’ autumn Budget has been an unmitigated disaster, which has had the diametrically opposite effect of what was intended, i.e. to stabilise the economy and promote growth – and one doesn’t have to even be a second rate economist to see that.

Linda Evans

Belsize Park, London

Where’s the wisdom?

With reference to Sean O’Grady’s piece yesterday (“It’s time to punish young male drivers… but not young women” – Friday 20 December) one can only wonder at the wisdom that allows a 19-year-old on the road in a high-performance car, capable of twice exceeding the maximum speed limit.

Indeed, one may question why we allow such cars on our roads at all?

David Smith

Taunton, Somerset

Ban on first-cousin marriages just Muslim bashing

The recent push to criminalise first-cousin marriage (“MP speaks out in Parliament against ban on marrying cousins” – Tuesday 10 December) risks alienating communities from one another at a time when we should be seeking out unity and commonality.

It isn’t lost on me that the narrative Conservative MP Richard Holden presented in his proposal to ban first-cousin marriages was one in which ”diaspora communities”, particularly Muslim communities, are defying long-held “national values”, engaging in a practice which impinges on the “freedom of women”.

MP Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, further insisted that the practice of cousin marriages is “medieval”. These are funny claims, given that our “national values” were arguably composed by a British aristocracy who, long after the medieval ages, married their cousins.

One must question why the conversation is being brought up now, when the rate of cousin marriages among Pakistani communities in Bradford has fallen sharply in the last ten years. It seems another way to negatively bring Muslims into the national conversation, pushing false, racist stereotypes that Muslims are backwards, misogynistic and un-British.

Elected officials have a responsibility not to validate such harmful views. This summer, we saw how politicians doing so helped to embolden the far-right to riot in the streets, intimidating black and brown people and insisting that Muslims are not welcome in this country.

It seems to me this is a far more dangerous and immediate threat to the safety of Muslim women, and indeed men, than cousin marriages have ever been.

Syeda Ahmad

Hampshire, UK