How can it be fair or decent to take £20 a week away from those who need it?

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Food bank use is set to rocket when the benefit top-up ends (PA)

It seems to me that cutting the £20 weekly uplift for those on universal credit, and not taxing it from those who can afford it, is a failure of society.

Yes, society does exist. We all need each other and the “other” should not be living on the edge of destitution.

How can that be fair or decent or help us to build for a better future?

Sarianne Durie

Bampton

Cheap, empty statements

Today I watched Tory MP Richard Holden endorse Priti Patel’s policy of turning back migrant boats at sea. The obvious question was to ask him: “If you were the captain of a Border Force or royal navy vessel, exactly how would you turn around a rubber boat, much smaller than your vessel, without endangering life?” 

It’s easy to make cheap, empty statements, leaving serious people to clear up after you. This is how Boris Johnson deals with any issue, with his “oven-ready deal” and “get Brexit done” slogans.

Tell that to the fishermen unable to sell fish so they no longer go to sea, the people of Northern Ireland being separated from the rest of the UK with a border down the Irish Sea and employers prevented from filling vacancies with suitable candidates because of another cheap, empty statement – “take back control” – spouted without a thought for a detailed plan beyond the soundbite, leaving us all to suffer the consequences.

John Simpson

Ross on Wye

Burnham for Labour leader

Poor Sir Keir Starmer is still struggling to curry favour with Labour voters. His popularity ratings are at best, consistently poor.

Perhaps it’s because he comes across, both in terms of appearance and manner, as a bit of a “champagne socialist” rather than a nitty-gritty man of the people.

The perfect man to replace him as leader of the opposition is undoubtedly Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester. He is charismatic, highly intelligent, politically savvy, believable and would leave Johnson furious, flustered, frustrated and floundering in parliamentary debates, which would delight disenfranchised Labour supporters.

The only problem is that Burnham is not currently an MP which I’m sure is something that could be remedied fairly easily and should be as a matter of urgency.

Linda Evans

London

Condemnations alone are not enough

It is clear that the quisling regime in Hong Kong, at the bidding of its political masters in Beijing, is determined to eradicate the memory of China’s massacre of student protesters in Tiananmen Square.

It comes as no surprise that this latest assault on the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China takes place just a few weeks before the PRC marks the 72nd anniversary of its founding.

Though Dominic Raab has condemned the arrests as yet another chilling demonstration of how the Beijing-imposed national security law is wielded against Hong Kong’s beleaguered civil society, condemnations alone are not enough.

How much more abuse will authorities inflict before Britain, the guarantor of Hong Kong’s autonomy, takes decisive action and sanctions Chinese officials guilty of rolling back rights and freedoms in Hong Kong?

Andrew Gwynne MP

Vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong

Climate change doesn’t care about borders

The 21st century has been marred by innumerable tragedies, wildfires, poverty, greed, our encroachment on the natural world, the migratory crisis and pandemics.

If this has taught us anything, it is that our world is interconnected and that our humanity is indivisible. Climate change, like terrorism, transcends national borders, religions, cultures and social backgrounds. It severely impacts on all spheres of society.

It’s time to reconfigure our relationship with the natural world and vanquish poverty and societal ills and injustices.

Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London