We must do more to prevent the radicalisation of people like Shamima Begum

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

Shamima Begum was 15 years old when she left the UK for Syria (PA Archive)

We carry enormous shame, ever greater, at the treatment of Shamima Begum after Friday’s judgment by the Court of Appeal.

We failed to support a community, failed to stop a minor travelling on a false passport to a war zone, and failed to warn her parents of a known risk.

We allowed, for political popularism under the guise of national security, to strip her citizenship and make her stateless – something we all should be concerned about. After the death of her three children, she has paid a terrible price for a mistake as a 15-year-old when targeted and trafficked to be a child bride.

We are, as a nation, truly on our knees when we use national security as an excuse for spending millions on this case while cutting well-respected interfaith and community group funding, run by a government with topsy-turvy priorities, where scapegoating and symbolism matter more than actual national security.

Andrew Snowdon

Great Yarmouth

Continuity of care

The Independent has reported recently on a Cambridge study extolling the virtues of care continuity in primary practice. Talk about the blindingly obvious! It’s a little depressing that one of the country’s great universities can’t come up with something more insightful.

I’d rather they investigated the effects of so many GP roles being devolved to less qualified practitioners.

Dr Anthony Ingleton

Sheffield

Do us a favour

Nicola Sturgeon breaks her uncharacteristic three-month silence on Facebook to snipe about Westminster parliamentary procedures. Not to debate crucial matters devolved to Holyrood such as education, the NHS, roads and public transport; in fact, not even to try to present constructive arguments for her separatist raison d’être. Nor to discuss the cost of living crisis that is of concern to virtually all in Scotland or even matters that may impact particularly on her own constituents.

Isn’t it time Sturgeon, who admits to spending 15 hours a week working on her memoir and frequently appears at book festivals across the UK, did her constituents and her party a favour and stood down as an MSP?

Martin Redfern

Melrose, Roxburghshire

Gladiators is a contender for worst show on television

I can’t believe that, in an age when we have access to a million different streaming services and the entire sum of human knowledge on the internet, people are still choosing to tune in and watch people with absolutely no charisma try to run a child’s obstacle course on the BBC’s Gladiators.

And before you accuse me of being nostalgic for the original, I didn’t think it was any good in the Nineties, either. But at least we had the excuse then of there being nothing else on TV to watch!

Stephen Bloom

Canterbury