Jeremy Corbyn deserves the respect of the media and fellow politicians

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The Labour leader responded confidently to Jeremy Paxman’s questions in an election broadcast on Monday night (Getty)

Certain politicians and sections of the media have decided to put on trial a man who has consistently fought for peace, for the saving of lives, and for a more humane approach to those designated as enemies to be killed and conquered, even where this involves innocent civilians and children.

Despite all the smears and stigma there is a noble courage of coherence about Jeremy Corbyn’s record which makes him not only fit to be prime minister but a necessity for this century. Where people have linked hands, as in Ireland and Europe, wars have ended and people have prospered. People like Corbyn – and Mandela, Gandhi and Obama – deserve the support of the sane.

Ian Flintoff
Oxford

We need to tackle terrorism on the ground, not just online

The tragic events in Manchester should be seen as a serious intelligence failure no matter how many previous plots were successfully disrupted. The bomber’s classic changes in behaviour, as he became radicalised, were reported. And he had just returned from Libya.

We sometimes forget that the “war on terror”, which creates a constant stream of new terrorists, all stemmed from America’s response to 9/11. Their overwhelming blunders with our blessing and backing have fanned the flames of conflict and made the world a much more dangerous place.

Isis rose from the ashes. Since then, we have faced a completely new threat of suicide bombers prepared to attack the country they’ve been living in.

The threat’s been increasing, not decreasing, as billions of pounds gets diverted into intrusive hi-tech electronic surveillance at the expense of front-line, community-based policing. There are 20,000 fewer officers than in 2010 when May became Home Secretary. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary has reported that the shortage of detectives and investigators is at “crisis levels”.

Theresa May’s “strong and stable” mantra is as vacuous as it is wrong and she has been instrumental in a colossal misallocation of the nation’s resources.

Stefan Wickham
Oxted

Theresa May’s narcissistic campaign

Was that a Freudian slip when Theresa May, during her bank holiday early evening TV political party speech, asked viewers to vote for “ME”? Although I guess a potential dictatorship will be avoided when folk look for her name on their specific voting papers – talk about muddying the waters – whatever happened to the good old straightforward, “Vote for the Conservative Party”?

Dave Haskell
Cardigan

Corbyn needs to accept that the UK is a deeply conservative country

After decades in politics, Jeremy Corbyn seems unable to grasp a simple fact. Britain is a profoundly conservative country, insular, besotted with militarism, immersed in hidebound traditions, and suffering from the post-imperial delusion that it is still a great power. Blair realised this when he committed Britain to Bush’s adventure in Iraq, to the jingoistic ecstasy of most of Fleet Street.

What Corbyn says is absolutely right. Britain has brought horrors like Manchester on itself by its catastrophic interventions in the Middle East, just as the atrocities of the IRA can be traced back to centuries of British oppression and exploitation in Ireland. But he hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing the majority of the British electorate of these verities.

Adrian Marlowe
Netherlands

A Brexit poem

The British did a foolish thing

And chose to leave the table

Where Europeans meet to share

As fairly as they’re able,

We’re going to trash the country

For a patriotic fable

Don’t waste your vote on Theresa May,

She’s weak (and quite unstable).

Adrian Morran
Address supplied

The Conservative campaign is a shambles

In all my life I have never seen a government try so hard to lose an election as the present Tory one appears to be doing.

William W Scott
North Berwick