Why I wish Suella Braverman was running for Tory leader

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

‘Trust them with the country? I wouldn’t trust them with my TV remote’ (PA)

What a pity Suella Braverman – and Liz Truss, for that matter – aren’t in the running to be the next Conservative leader. At least then we’d have a full house of the very people who have made it such a shambles. Trust them with the country? I wouldn’t trust them with my TV remote.

After the 1997 wipeout, the Conservative Party went through three former ministers – Michael Howard, Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague – before skipping a generation to find a winner in David Cameron.

The Conservatives need to skip this generation of failures and look for new blood – someone untainted by the previous shambles.

Barry Tighe

Woodford Green

The real threat is the one within

It is worrying to hear the senior Tory and one-time possible leadership contender, Braverman, saying that her government “overreacted” to Covid. Did she not think more than 200,000 deaths were enough? Did she have a bigger target in mind?

Despite all the global threats the UK is currently facing, if and when the next pandemic arrives, our biggest threat will be a Tory government that refuses to act accordingly.

Geoff Forward

Stirling

Labour’s rail plans need speeding up

While I support the government’s policy to return the railways to public ownership, I deplore the decision to do it piecemeal as existing contracts end.

This is not fair or even-handed – and means that some parts of the country will not benefit from the changes until after the next general election. If Labour was to lose that election, the planned nationalisation of remaining rail companies could be abandoned by an incoming Tory government.

The current administration must be persuaded to nationalise all railway companies at the same time. It was done in the 1940s, so it can be done now.

John E Harrison

Lancashire

It’s time to lose the middleman

When I started work in November 1963, the private sector far outweighed the public sector. That status has now been reversed.

In my opinion, as much as 40 per cent of the public sector is taken up with unnecessary roles and ineffective bureaucracy. It points to a simple solution: cut out the waste in the public sector, and more funds become available.

One doesn’t need fancy management consultants to arrange this. Instigating simple ratio accounting will make our public services more effective and more affordable.

Martin Levin

London

Police officers are human, too

Many years ago, as a serving police officer in an overseas jurisdiction, I chased a suspected drug trafficker across a large housing estate, eventually catching him in open ground. I was alone, and he resisted violently. Fortunately, the cavalry arrived quickly, and the fight probably lasted only for a couple of minutes – but it seemed much longer. I was shaken and bruised, but otherwise OK.

I can well understand how the officers involved in the recent incident at Manchester airport felt.  

In the middle of sudden violence, clear thinking is interrupted by the will to survive and an overwhelming urge to suppress the source of that violence. Turning that switch off in an instant is not always easy.

We are fortunate in this country to have police officers who face danger for us and, it would seem, are doing so with increasing frequency. Video evidence has its place, but understanding the full picture requires time and patient investigation.

David Platts

Newark