The UK can manage perfectly well without Elon Musk

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

Elon Musk posted comments about the UK on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter (PA Archive)

I am pleased that Mr Musk has not been invited to the UK investment summit. He clearly has plenty of funds to invest, but no doubt there would be a quid pro quo involved, and given his previous record I imagine his demands would not be entirely welcome here in Britain.

His encouragement of fake news and allowing hateful posts on X/Twitter, are in my view valid reasons to not issue an invitation to him. Just to reinforce my misgivings, the fact that Kemi Badenoch is a “huge fan” merely confirms my reservations.

David Felton

Crewe

It’s time to end the scourge of breast cancer

Tuesday 1 October marks the start of this year’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual awareness-raising campaign to highlight this disease. Yet breast cancer numbers keep increasing, now affecting almost 57,000 people every year. It remains the UK’s most common cancer, and the biggest cause of death for women aged 35 to 49.

All breast cancer journeys start with diagnosis, but there’s a looming threat in the NHS workforce with as many as two in five specialists reaching retirement in the next 18 months.

The added pressure this will heap on breast screening services will cause delays in mammograms and diagnoses, and worsen the UK’s breast cancer outcomes.

Together with Manchester Foundation Trust Charity, we are actively fundraising to build a National Breast Imaging Academy to train 50 new specialists a year and increase screening capacity in the North West by up to 13,000 appointments a year. This practical solution to the workforce shortage must go ahead – the consequences of not investing are life threatening for thousands of women in the UK.

Nikki Barraclough

Chief executive, Prevent Breast Cancer

The right-wing press has accidentally made a saint of Starmer

The fact that after months of digging the right-wing media could not find anything more scandalous to condemn Starmer than a couple of nothing stories about designer clothes and staying in somebody’s flat seem to have had rather an unintended effect: if that’s the worst they can say about him, then it makes our prime minister seem a paragon of virtue to be cherished (unlike certain former holders of the office).

Charles Cronin

Address supplied

An easy fix to party donation drama

At last, a sensible article about the Labour Party and donations! Thank you, John Rentoul.

Yes, let’s have everything declared by all politicians so there’s no sting in any tail, and then all links are visible when new large contracts are awarded. Let’s let our politicians breathe and their families live without being hounded.

Joan Cooper

Address supplied