If only we could all just ignore Liz Truss

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

The jury is out on whether she will be friend or foe to the people of the UK (AFP/Getty)

One thing we have learnt from the Tory leadership contest is that Liz Truss likes to pander to the right-wing zealots of the media and the Tory party. She has been insulting many of the people and organisations she will have to deal with if she becomes prime minister. She has shown she is the real attention seeker in politics and the jury is out on whether she will be friend or foe to the people of the UK. If only we could just ignore her...

Geoff (name supplied)

Stirling

Why does Liz Truss even want this job?

I agree with Harriet Williamson (The new PM will take office at a time of great uncertainty, 29 August) and isn’t that the unvarnished truth? I often wonder why anyone would want to place their heads above the parapet of these imploding, febrile and dangerous times we are all having to endure in this fractured country and world. It is to be sincerely hoped that our prospective prime minister Liz Truss is fully au fait with what she is being confronted with, and has the political acumen and nous to install a cabinet with proactive ministers who can make a significant difference and not just friends and members of her fan base. She needs talent on an exponential scale and certainly not unquestioning and vacuous loyalty.

This is where Boris Johnson went wrong and his administration became a natural home for cronies and men and women who agreed with him. She needs to install combative people who will query her stance and not just bang the cabinet table in toadying obsequiousness. She needs challenging and not “yes” ministers. But why she wants the job in the first place is completely beyond my comprehension, because this particular and exceptional poison chalice will not be the heady elixir of political success, she might naively perceive it to be. Quite the opposite I would imagine, unless she can pull numerous rabbits out of a Tory hat.

Judith A Daniels

Norfolk

We are going backwards at a rate of knots

My parents were born in the mid-1920s and often, especially my mother, regaled me with how ordinary people lived before the war and for that matter up until they married in 1951. A popular subject was always the winter months living in old draughty accommodation. There was no central heating, no hot water, no plumbed-in washing machines, and the delights of outside toilets. Their parents/grandparents only heated one room, wore jumpers, even coats, indoors; water had to be boiled only when needed, for example, on clothes washing day on Monday. Everyone suffered from chilblains, which are now rarely heard of, due to the cold, but I was assured were very painful indeed.

Looking at the looming energy crisis in this country I foresee the return of the latter toe condition; and our woeful government suggesting a return to my historical reality as a solution to their lack of targeted help this winter. We really are going backwards at a rate of knots.

Robert Boston

Kent

Capitalism is past its sell-by date

Capitalism is now clearly past its sell-by date. According to [think tank] Truth in Accounting, the USA’s total debt is $144 trillion and rising at $2,000,000 a second. In other words, the USA is dead broke. Britain’s declared debt (it is probably worse), is around £2.5 trillion, rising at over £5,000 a second. Indeed, we are getting very close to having to declare ourselves a failed state.

Boris Johnson’s capitalism has brought us to a point of economic chaos where we have to face a winter in which millions may suffer hospitalisation from illnesses or even death from sub-zero temperatures or starvation. What is to be done? Surely, the Labour Party must now ditch Sir Kier Starmer and reform itself into a proper socialist party before our total economic collapse, rather than after it.

David Lee

Address withheld

There is a link between the climate crisis and Covid

The climate crisis is creating the perfect whirlwind for infectious illnesses. We are on the edge of an abyss. Climate change is the invincible and immortal nemesis facing humanity today. We have witnessed this recently during the coronavirus pandemic, the terrifying floods in Pakistan, and extreme heatwaves, droughts and bushfires.

But the climate crisis is also manifested via water scarcity in rivers and waterways as exemplified in the Jordan River which encompasses spiritual, religious and cultural meanings. It is time to translate this sense of urgency into durable commitments to alleviate human suffering and climate change and attain sustainable development goals.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London