Fantasist politicians like Michael Gove have damaged this country

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The damage is likely to take a government of a different colour a long time to repair (PA)

I refer to Tom Peck’s accurate appreciation of Michael Gove. There is a gulf in consequence between “success” in an Oxford Union undergraduate debate, where untruths may or may not win the argument and the day, and the outcomes of the same formula applied to the process of government where the effects of a decision are real and can last for years.

Winning the “argument” by deceit (ably assisted by actively compliant sections of the media) has been demonstrated to have profound and adverse consequences for the UK, both nationally and internationally.

It is not Gove alone who bears responsibility, but Peck’s observation that he “banjaxed his country’s economy in a paroxysm of Spitfire nationalism" is bang on target. Unfortunately, his party provides many similar examples.

The damage is likely to take a government of a different colour a long time to repair. The damage to the Tory party may border on the existential.

David Nelmes

Newport

No need for heat or eat choices

Obviously, the government giving money towards fuel bills is welcome, but it is a desperate effort because they have failed to manage the situation.

Not all recipients of this money will use it for their energy bills. Even if they do, that amount of money will not purchase as much as intended because the price is increasing so rapidly.

What is needed is a specific amount of energy delivered free to everybody. Consumers can relax because they will always be able to boil a kettle, they can have the heating on for so many hours, and they don’t need to choose between heating and eating.

The cost can be recovered from an increase in price for higher-usage customers. If you are heating your swimming pool, then you should expect to pay more per year than an old person boiling water for a cup of tea.

Robert Murray

Nottingham

The great British experience

There are certain countries in the world I would never visit, because of the restrictions they place on women, their treatment of vulnerable people, their environmental destruction, and their corrupt and repressive governments.

I live in a country where women are being consistently forced out of paid employment and into unpaid caring roles because of the lack of affordable childcare and social care for the elderly; where people with disabilities and those who are poor (including refugees) are consistently deprived of a decent quality of life; where raw sewage is regularly deposited into rivers and the sea, causing beaches to be closed because of the health threat – and where the leader of the country was deposed by his own cabinet because of his immoral actions, while the country rushes headlong into mass poverty and corresponding strikes because key workers cannot afford food and fuel.

Freedom of speech is already restricted, and the prospect of strikes being made illegal has also been mooted.

Welcome to the Great British experience!

Katharine Powell

Cheshire

Cost of doing business

The total fines on all water companies of £250m over five years tell a story: the current penalties for pollution are just one of the costs of doing business for water companies.

We need a radical reform of the regulatory structure and the controls on water companies before we get anything more than lip service to proper, responsible, wastewater treatment.

David Wallis

Cirencester

Infrastructure demands a long-term approach

As a long-retired civil engineer who specialised in highways, I read with interest your article today entitled: “On the road to destruction.”

To me, the most telling comment was the one you reported from Ladd Keith as follows: “It’s not so much a technical but a sociopolitical problem.” Too often, decision-makers build with “a short-term vision” while the cost of a road is spread out over its lifetime, he says. The needs of highways can be compared with, say, cars that have an essential maintenance profile, which is ignored at our peril.

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Sadly, this short-term vision of politicians doesn’t spread over the lifetime, or whole life, of the infrastructure, but rather over their lifetime in the job, which as we know is considerably shorter than the whole life of our infrastructure. This problem goes back into history and is not confined to highways.

We have seen similar issues with water supply and sewage systems, railways, and many buildings such as schools and hospitals on which our society depends. In other words, too often politicians have taken lowest first-cost options rather than being fully committed to whole-life costs.

I would liken this topic to parents who give excessive pocket money to their kids, who neither need it nor deserve it, whilst their house is falling down. The situation also reminds me of the current Tory leadership contest with the well-publicised offers of tax cuts to those who need them less than the nation’s infrastructure and its most vulnerable citizens.

John Oliver

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