What is the home secretary thinking?

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

Suella Braverman’s ability to offend is disgusting (PA Wire)

What will it take for our prime minister to get rid of a minister who is a disgrace to our country? Suella Braverman’s proposals for getting the homeless off our streets is inhumane. Do we really want this woman representing us in government?

The sheer heartlessness of this woman no longer comes as a surprise, but the prime minister’s seeming reluctance to remove her from office is just as bad. Her ability to offend is disgusting, his apparent inability to do anything about it is dismaying. Bring on an election!

L Robertson

Orkney

It’s the environment, stupid

In 1992 James Carville came up with the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”. Perhaps it should now be “It’s the environment, stupid”. I have noticed, from talking to friends and family, that there’s great concern over the state of the environment.

People have accepted that global warming is here, now. People expect more flooding, more heat waves, and are aware of the consequences for their lives and the lives of others. But where’s the political action?

Nowhere to be seen while we salivate over the latest Covid inquiry shenanigans. The Tories seem more concerned with staying on in power for as long as possible, and Labour focuses on trying not to be the Tories. Hopefully, come the election, people will vote for a party that will place the environment at the forefront of their policies. If not, expect more of the same; and don’t say you weren’t warned.

Andy Vant

Shropshire

AI can be a force for social good – if we let it

Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk have only really applied a technocratic narrative to the benefits and drawbacks of AI. Aside from finance, mass production and distribution, IT and defence, AI has little say about the needs of an ageing and increasingly infirm population.

An economy not dependent on the money-making talents of a few highly paid individuals would result in a much fairer fiscal policy undercutting the argument that high marginal taxes stifle growth.

This would facilitate better wages for those who care for others encouraging proper staffing of hospitals, care homes, day centres, schools, social services and police forces. Surely AI would enable society to properly look after its citizens?

David Smith

Taunton

The economy needs a Labour government

I read Archie Mitchell’s report with interest. For too long there has been this disingenuous and misleading commentary that Labour could not be trusted with the country’s finances. Although of course the dire mini-Budget laid bare the government’s own fallibility in this respect, which blew their own fiscal credibility out of the water, so Lord Clarke’s commendation is welcome.

I am not sure, though, that Rachel Reeves would like Lord Mandelson’s reference to her being “a bit of an old boot”, but of course, she will need that steeliness to guide us out of the financial hole this government is fast digging for us. But cometh the budget deficit after the general election, cometh the chancellor, and that she will be the one to rise to the despatch box and start remedying the situation.

Judith A Daniels

Norfolk

A lifestyle choice? As if!

I was surprised to discover that, according to our home secretary, as winter approaches, living in a tent on dirty streets during freezing weather while under the constant threat of violence is a “lifestyle choice”! Well, who knew?!

Sue Breadner

Isle of Man