Jeremy Hunt's comments on a no-deal Brexit show how clueless he is

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Monday 23 July 2018 19:54 BST
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No-deal Brexit could happen 'by accident', Jeremy Hunt says

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So Jeremy Hunt reckons that a no-deal Brexit could happen by accident, does he? Surely that was never in question?

Ever since David Cameron departed, this government has done little more than lurch from one self-imposed catastrophe to another.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes

Jeremy Hunt informs the Germans and the rest of us that the UK won’t blink in the Brexit negotiations.

Well of course not; if you go into a negotiation with your eyes shut, blinking becomes impossible.

Ashley Herbert
Huddersfield

A hung parliament?

I have just learned that Sajid Javid has agreed to the extradition of the captured “Beatles” group, and is waiving the decades-old policy of not sending alleged criminals to countries where the death penalty is invoked.

How dare a “here today, gone tomorrow” politician decide arbitrarily to flout this longstanding policy, seemingly with no consequences?

Can these Tory ministers do whatever they like now, with no recourse to parliament? I believe now that we need a general election more than at any other time in history.

Bryan Henstock
​Devon

Not a drop to drink

At one time, stories for children had hidden moral or warning themes. Nowadays they are an introduction to a life of fiction, where real existence is a short interval between long bouts of escapism in books, TV, films or gaming.

Fake news on the internet is a logical extension to this existence, built on illusion and delusion. We are living so much unreality that we have forgotten a fact of life: the need for water and the consequences of being without it.

If the rainfall is insufficient, it matters not a jot if water companies are not fixing the leakages and Ofwat incentivises companies, instead of pushing for urgent legislation; or the cost of renationalisation (minimal, if no water).

We would be losing the mainstay of our existence, and would be faced with having to live or die in the real world.

Geoff Naylor
Colden Common

Margaret, are you grieving?

As the New Labour minister for Works and Pensions, Margaret Hodge was notorious for using anti-immigrant rhetoric in an attempt to woo the racist vote. Jeremy Corbyn has always fought racism in whatever form it manifests itself.

Hodge’s persistence in making false claims of antisemitism against Corbyn is disgusting. Using the smear of antisemitism as a weapon to fight factional fights within the Labour Party is criminally irresponsible, especially given the revival of neo-Nazism across Europe. These disgraceful smears only serve to undermine the anti-racist struggle.

To use the same language she used against the leader of her own party, Hodge should f*** off out of the Labour Party and join one more suited to her previously expressed view – like Ukip.

Sasha Simic
​Supplied

If I were a rich man ...

OK I know this is stupid, and any respectable economist would knock it down in seconds, but let’s try it. Even allowing for loopholes and evasions, it should be technically possible by taxation to limit the maximum any one person can earn. How much? £750,000? £1m? £1.5m? Think of a figure.

Similarly, limit the amount of wealth any one person could own before making significant contributions to the national wealth.

What might happen? Fewer people could afford astronomic house prices, so it seems likely prices would have to come down. Anyone else got a good idea how to make housing affordable for everyone?

And does anyone really think a column in The Telegraph is worth £250,000 a year?

David Buckton
Cambridge

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