Good riddance, Suella – the dustbin of history awaits

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Braverman has polluted the Home Office for long enough (Reuters)

The news that Suella Braverman has finally been sacked as the UK’s home secretary is cause for rejoicing.

Braverman spent most of last week pressuring the police to ban Saturday’s march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She previously characterised the weekly demonstrations for peace as “hate marches”.

On Saturday, it was clear that the only “hate march” in central London was at the Cenotaph as far-right extremists “polluted” Armistice Day, action incited and enabled by Braverman.

From what I witnessed, Braverman never bothered to disguise her affinity for the far right. She seemed to build a career on hate directed primarily but not exclusively against refugees and asylum seekers. She has “obsessed” about deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. She has put asylum seekers onto the Legionella-contaminated Bibby Stockholm. She has taken up the language of the far right to describe asylum seekers as “swarms”, “invaders” and “criminals”. She even refused to moderate her language against asylum seekers when Holocaust survivor Joan Salter said such language was dehumanising.

But Braverman’s recent attempt to deny rough sleepers the comfort of a tent showed that her hatred for the desperate went beyond asylum seekers and refugees.

Hopefully, the dustbin of history awaits Braverman. She has polluted the Home Office for long enough.

Good riddance to the very worst home secretary the UK has had – so far.

Sasha Simic

London

Time to show that we are a country that cares

Cue more warfare in the battle for the heart and soul of the Conservative Party.

Hopefully, the new home secretary will create an asylum system run on a not-for-profit principle, one that uses public funds to improve services that all of us, including people seeking asylum, rely on. A system that strengthens local authorities to ensure that every person seeking safety is housed in decent, community-based accommodation. A system in which no person seeking safety is detained, and a system that recognises everyone’s right to seek refuge away from persecution.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

Return of the (you must be jo)king

Having given most of the party interns a short go at playing politics it seems rather odd that the architect of the UK’s demise should suddenly be made foreign secretary.

Cameron was considered a lightweight by the US, treated with contempt in Europe, and looked at with passing interest by the extreme regimes he sought to blindly appease.

Every time the UK government seems to have reached rock bottom, someone playing grown-ups manages to go deeper.

Matt Minshall

Brittany

Ghost of cabinets past

In Dickens’ novel seven years after his death, Jacob Marley arrives in the night dragging his chains and money chests with him to warn Scrooge to change or to simply end up like him. Seven years after his demise David Cameron arrives at Downing Street encumbered by the chains of Brexit and, no doubt, weighed down with more than a little loose change in his pockets. A Christmas Carol is a fictional work, albeit with a real-world message, but if I were Rishi Sunak I would avoid any sleep until the new year. Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman and Elon Musk are already in the wings for their three scary, ghostly appearances.

Dickens’ message spoke loud and clear as a warning about selfishness, ignorance and the callousness of the society around him. I’m sure there are many rightly preaching the same message today. I suggest that someone buys Keir Starmer a copy for Christmas just to awaken his awareness of the task ahead. The millions of “Cratchit families” in this country and across the planet urgently need a change of direction and a Scrooge-like conversion. Our country and planet are crying out for change.

John Dillon

Birmingham

Right to be wrong

Braverman may be right about the Met Police not being entirely, evenhanded... just not in the way she thinks.

Based on Braverman’s recent words, I would argue that the Met should be talking to her about incitement to racial hatred, which is an offence under the Public Order Act, as home secretary, she should be more than aware of that.

And just why do politicians feel the need to use newspapers to put across their views in “op-eds”?

It is just not the right forum. Newspapers should not let themselves be hijacked as mouthpieces, regardless of their own political leanings.

Charles Wood

Birmingham