Another day, another round in the endless Tory civil war

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As the prime minister calls for unity, up pops the lady he ousted, Liz Truss, this time launching ‘popular conservatism’ (Getty)

Just as Rishi Sunak calls for unity, up pops the lady he ousted, Liz Truss, this time launching “Popcon” or to be clearer “popular conservatism”.

Another day and another round in the endless Tory civil war.

Apparently, Truss will be launching the group with Jacob Rees-Mogg and Simon Clarke on Tuesday 6 February.

One assumes that being accountable and true conservatives, they will be wanting Jeremy Hunt and Sunak to watch the purse strings. In which case, Truss has sparked yet another civil war. After all, 40 Conservative MPs have already signed a letter to Sunak threatening to vote against the local government finance settlement if the government doesn’t provide “hundreds of millions” in additional funding.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Facts over feelings

We need to change our attitude towards those applying for asylum. Many have fled war and disaster in their home country and could well qualify as refugees to live in the UK. However, because they risked their lives to come in small boats, this government is passing laws to fly them to an unsafe country – as deemed by our own Supreme Court – before any asylum application is even considered. Failed asylum seekers are already deported back to their own country. It’s important to recongise the facts.

As these people have already taken so many risks to get here, who really thinks that sending maybe some 200 souls to Rwanda will stop the boats? It’s just red meat for the right wing who have zero compassion.

The only viable solution is to put a visa office in Calais and encourage would-be migrants to apply for a visa, like for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, this would stop the smugglers and allow the Home Office to vet people before offering asylum.

Eleanor Holloway

Ascot

A source of great concern

I’m no fan of the House of Lords and its unelected status. However, on the subject of Rwanda and stopping the small boats, its position appears moral, ethical, legal, and compassionate. In short, sensible in comparison with the elected House of Commons. It should be a source of great concern to us that peers of the realm are more competent governors of the state (at least on this matter) than its elected representatives.

David Smith

Taunton

Death of the arts

One wonders why the Tories even bother to have a culture department. Ministers come and go almost annually, often complete nonentities or en passant at the beginning of their climb up the greasy ministerial pole. Crucially none of them appear to display any serious interest in the arts. They preside over a progressive decline in government subvention for the performing arts in particular, which most European countries cherish and regard as central to the culture of a civilised society.

Tory culture ministers and their supporters in the right-wing press almost invariably display a deep-seated antipathy towards the BBC it seems to me, for no better reason than that it speaks truth to power through objective news reporting and fearless investigative journalism. They increasingly use this supposed political bias to squeeze BBC budgets causing serious damage to the work of the greatest promoter and sustainer of the arts in Britain. Are we surprised that Lucy Fraser struggled in successive interviews to provide any serious examples of recent BBC bias?

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

Pot calling the kettle black

It is ironic of Keir Starmer to accuse the Tories of McCarthyism.

I am one of hundreds expelled from the Labour Party for supporting a proscribed socialist campaign group – before it was proscribed. Having one’s social media scraped for evidence of retrospective rule-breaking provides good reason for us to compare Starmer’s Labour Party to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The prevalence of the union flag on Labour’s rebranding, including the new membership card, supports this view. My old membership card had the first line of Clause IV printed on the back: “The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party”. At this point, they could have just replaced “socialist” with “nationalist”.

Carol Wilcox

Christchurch