The Tories should disqualify leadership candidates who served under Boris Johnson

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Disqualifying any candidate who served in Johnson’s government would cull the bloated contest (AFP/Getty)

As per Sean O’Grady, this bloated leadership contest race is in desperate need of a cull.

As a nation, for nearly three years, we have been led by a dishonest man and a government comprising largely talentless individuals who knew exactly who and what he was, and remains.

Had the Tory party (and, in particular, the 1922 Committee) any honour and integrity they would disqualify any candidate who served in Johnson’s government from standing in the leadership contest.

That would cull the bloated contest and ensure a man or woman of honour and integrity became the next leader of the party and prime minister.

Only then can this country begin to heal, regain its self-respect and repair its badly damaged reputation internationally.

Nick Eastwell

London

Winning gambit

Having witnessed the demise of Boris Johnson from abroad, my thoughts have turned to the Tory party and its future.

It is at present hard to envisage one. Boris’s main achievement was to unite the party because he was a winner, not because he had any coherent policies.

“Levelling Up” and “Get Brexit Done” were mere slogans and neither is happening.

Rishi Sunak may be so rich he is incorruptible, which is certainly attractive, but does he have the sense to realise that more austerity is not an election-winning gambit?

Chris Norris

Wiltshire

Sensible reset

I agree that the next Tory leader should come clean over Brexit. But what’s the expectation that this ongoing debacle will become business as usual, and the public will be spun the latest notion, that Brexit just needs tweaking, and that we are all too impatient for the dividends to arrive, possibly in the next 50 years?

I agree with Lord Heseltine that this whole divisive issue needs looking at again, and certainly without the demands about trashing treaties and laws, just because they weren’t looked into properly in the first place.

This country has had more than enough of “squaring up to Europe” and would indeed welcome a pragmatic and positive rapprochement.

A sensible reset would find favour with the British public, who are sick and tired of being manipulated about the positives of Brexit when the elephant in the room is plainly visible.

I was disappointed with Sir Keir Starmer’s “make Brexit work” rationale because basically you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and no amount of tinkering around the Brexit edges will facilitate this. Many of the public who voted Leave did not vote for the intractable and hardline stance, and would be willing to rethink their views if a relationship with Europe became more attractive.

We have a European war on our doorsteps and if that aberrational occurrence doesn’t change our European thinking, I don’t know what will.

Judith A Daniels

Norfolk

Broken Westminster

I have to take issue with Martin Redfern’s defence of Westminster in yesterday’s letters.

In December 2019, around 44 per cent of voters chose a Conservative MP, yet we ended up with a massive 80-seat Tory majority. So, a government is given an unchallengeable majority despite significantly more than 50 per cent voting against them.

They have ridden roughshod over our rights with this parliamentary majority and there is nothing voters can do.

Martin is correct that the Westminster model has been exported many times, but this is mainly to former colonial countries who had the system imposed on them. Westminster, and our democracy, is broken when the majority are forced to tolerate extreme governance.

It is essential that our whole democratic system is revised to make it more representative and, therefore, more accountable. Since this is unlikely to happen across the wider UK, Scotland should take this opportunity to break cleanly. so we can build a fairer, more successful, society.

David Newsham

Stirling

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