The Tory party’s war on asylum seekers is wasting money for nothing

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

Foreign secretary James Cleverly, right, with his Rwandan counterpart Vincent Biruta in Kigali (PA)

With the revelation of a further £100m payment having been made to Rwanda in April of this year, on top of the initial £140m, and with a further £50m expected to be paid next year on top of that, our government will have shelled out millions to pay for the transfer of no asylum seekers whatsoever.

That’s well in excess of a quarter of a billion pounds sterling for nothing, nada, zilch – and this from a government which still insists that it can’t afford to pay teachers, doctors or nurses what they’re worth, which has allowed schools and hospitals to fall into disrepair, and which still continues to penalise housing benefit claimants if they have a spare bedroom in their properties.

Call me cynical, if you will, but I’m beginning to doubt whether this government truly has our best interests at heart.

Julian Self

Milton Keynes

Thank goodness for heated blankets

I have just received notification that my energy prices are going up in January and like many others I am hoping the winter is a mild one. This is the second winter of my retirement and last year was not a great start what with Trussonomics wiping out a significant chunk of my pension pot in the winter energy crisis. 

My chosen retirement date was unfortunate, to say the least. A year on things are not much better; we still can’t afford to heat the house as we would like and sit in cold rooms much of the time. Thank goodness for heated blankets! I never thought for a minute this is where we would end up.

Our beloved Tory leaders don’t know what it’s like to sit in a cold house in the winter. Suella Braverman claimed more than £10,000 in expenses alone. They live on a different planet from the rest of us.

I am biding my time and waiting for polling day... the day of reckoning when I can finally do my bit to rid this country of this bunch of self-obsessed rogues and charlatans.

Paul Morrison

Address Supplied

We must do more for those living with dementia

People with dementia too often go without their palliative care needs identified until very late, if at all, leaving them without the care that could relieve the pain and other physical and psychiatric symptoms that intensify as dementia advances.

As more people are diagnosed with dementia and the number of deaths from the illness increases, there will be a greater need for high-quality, palliative and end of life care. The overall need for this care is expected to increase 25 per cent by 2040, with the biggest increase expected among those living with dementia.

Of course, funding research to prevent and cure dementia is essential but alongside this, governments must better resource palliative care so people with dementia can live as well as possible for as long as possible. It is a reality that people dying with and of dementia is one of the health service’s biggest challenges. The government must not forget them.

Amy Dalrymple

Marie Curie

How very convenient

I’m mystified by Rishi Sunak’s claim that he cannot provide his WhatsApp messages from the time of the Covid crisis because he has changed his phone “multiple times” since then and the messages have not transferred.

Multiple times? In three years? That seems somewhat extreme, to put it mildly.

The mobile phones of the prime minister must be sensitive from a security point of view. So even if the messages had not transferred across to each new phone (which surely should have happened anyway) then what happened to his previous “multiple” phones? If he still has them, the messages will be on them and could be made available to the Covid inquiry.

If not, what happened to them? What happened to the sensitive material on them? How extremely convenient it is that both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are so clueless with their phones, and the material contained within them, that this important information is withheld from the inquiry and the British public.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire