Sunak has finally plucked up the courage to defy the Tory right wing

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This destructive myopia has dominated government for the last seven years (PA)

Rishi Sunak has finally plucked up the courage to defy the Tory right wing and has shuffled his cabinet. We will now be forced to spend yet more time listening to factions of the Conservative Party battling for supremacy from within their own ranks. The rest of us, outside of Westminster will be left to wonder if there is anyone in that small neck of the woods who is actually worried about governing the country at large.

This destructive myopia, having dominated government for at least the last seven years, promises to continue its selfish course until we, the people, get the opportunity to indicate that we are sick and tired of watching and listening to so few accomplishing so little for so long.

Ian Reid

Kilnwick

Is the jungle fee enough for a Coutts account?

With his reported £1.5m appearance fee, will I’m A Celebrity... competitor Nigel Farage now qualify for a Coutts prestige bank account again? Or has that bridge been burned?

Phil Summerfield

East Lothian

A shameful return

As Rishi Sunak holds his first cabinet meeting following the reshuffle which saw Suella Braverman kicked into orbit and ex-PM David Cameron’s shameful political career resurrected with his appointment to foreign secretary, it is well to remember that the public sector cuts imposed by Cameron’s “austerity” government are believed to have led to the deaths of 120,000 people, and probably many more when Boris Johnson allowed incompetence and greed to rule over the Covid-19 crisis.

The time for a general election could not come soon enough.

Sasha Simic

London

Too tempting to refuse

I read The Independent’s recent editorial with great interest. I for one gasped when I saw David Cameron emerging from his car. Rishi Sunak has certainly played a blinder, taken all the oxygen from Suella Braverman’s necessary sacking, and ensconced a Tory heavyweight back in government.

But let’s not forget the debacle of the Brexit referendum when Cameron took us complacently down that infamous route, which for the most part, has reverberated negatively ever since. Also, the political choice of austerity, which savagely permeated his government and impacted so many.

Clearly, all those sweet siren voices murmuring “come back, come back” became his political earworm and a call he seemingly could not ignore.

Judith A. Daniels

Norfolk

How many more children have to die?

I applaud The Independent for illuminating the frightening ordeal endured by children in Gaza. Children have been forced to endure a seemingly endless cycle of displacement, deprivation, and death.

It is time that the international community demands an immediate cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip. How many more children have to die before the free world stops this senseless war?

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

We need collaboration to beat cancer

The UK’s abandonment of its 0.7 per cent GDP international aid target is commonly recognised as a cruel cut made on the backs of the world’s poorest people.

What few people realise is that development programmes are not just limited to hunger or drought. They are also about critical healthcare.

The increasing impact of climate change and military conflict – just this year in Sudan, Ukraine, and most recently in Israel and Gaza – leads inevitably to the degradation of care for already underserved populations of people with cancer.

In such countries, the impact of a cancer diagnosis is not only pain and misery for the patient – a death in one generation can cause catastrophic financial hardship for the next, as years of productive life and income are lost.

And the outcomes are stark. While eight in 10 children diagnosed with cancer here at home go on to live their lives, only one in five do so in low-income countries.

All countries have something to teach us about how to tackle this challenge. The UK should engage more, not less, with the low and middle-income countries to advance our collective knowledge.

As cancer experts from across the world are gathering now for London Global Cancer Week we call on all governments in high-income countries to invest in cancer care beyond their own shores.

The global rise in cancer incidence calls for global cooperation and collaboration and the UK has a leading role to play.

Mark Lodge, founder of London Global Cancer Week, Professor Sir Walter Bodmer, head of the CRUK Cancer and Immunogenetics Laboratory at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Prof David Collingridge, editor-in-chief, The Lancet Oncology / Publishing Director, The Lancet Group, Dr Jane Barrett OBE FRCP FRCR, consultant oncologist, Cork University Hospital, Richard Sullivan FRCS PhD FFPM MC, director, Institute of Cancer Policy / professor, Cancer & Global Health, Sarah Quinlan MBE, director of Radiotherapy UK, Professor Pat Price, Department of Surgery & Oncology, Imperial College London, Prof Annie Young, co-founder of Global Power of Oncology Nursing (GPON), Prof Julia Downing, chief executive International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN), Wil Ngwa, chair, Lancet Oncology Commission on Cancer in sub-Saharan Africa and founding director Global Health Catalyst at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, Annie Young, emerita professor of Nursing, Warwick Medical School, Carlos Caldas, professor of Cancer Medicine, Cambridge University, Julia Downing, CEO, International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN)