The Uxbridge by-election result is being blown out of proportion

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Sadiq Khan has been proven right on the science and the law (PA Archive)

The conversation around the Uxbridge by-election result is ridiculous. A safe Tory seat, held by a previous PM, was retained with the paltry, embarrassing majority of 495 votes, after a recount. That result was neither a win for the Tories, who scraped through, nor an outright loss for Labour, who very nearly won.

So, the debate about Ulez insults us all. A debate about air quality should not be hijacked by political interests. Poor air quality impacts negatively on people’s health, so impacts on employment levels and, of course, impacts on our NHS. All of this has serious economic consequences. We should all support Ulez and politicians should find a way to ameliorate Sadiq Khan’s implementation of this scheme.

Beryl Wall

London

Why is Labour vilifying Sadiq Khan?

Sadiq Khan has been proven right on the science and the law. Why is he being vilified by both Labour and the Conservatives?

Have we not learnt the lessons of Covid – “listen to the science”? Or is that horror already a wasted, forgotten lesson?

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

A solar scam?

During a recent family discussion on the merits of various forms of green energy, I was reminded of a visit we had from a company selling solar panels. Even allowing for the vagaries of our local climate, the salesperson produced figures to show that even with our limited exposure to sunlight, combined with the feed in tariff we would have paid off our investment in 25 years.

Given that we are unlikely to be living in the same house, let alone actually living at that time, we decided it was not for us. Now I read today in your piece on solar power that silicon-based solar panels have a life expectancy of just 20 years. Looks like we made the right decision.

Geoff Forward

Stirling

The UK’s migration policies are abhorrent

As I open my Independent app each morning, I almost dread reading about the latest ideas for dealing with refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK. The camps, prison ships and now tented ghettos are all illegal under international law and immoral by any measure.

There appears to be an assumption that people will stop travelling to the UK if they are treated worse than the murderers, rapists and paedophiles held in UK prisons. Does the UK government believe that the people fleeing persecution, starvation, war and poverty sit and read a newspaper before setting off on their dangerous journey? Perhaps they believe that the persecutors or people traffickers tell them about the UK policies?

Escalating climate change will make large areas of our planet uninhabitable due to heat, floods and rising sea levels, probably sparking more wars and then the problem will only get worse.

By their own figures, only 18 per cent of immigration to the UK is from asylum seekers, only 24 per cent of those were rejected on their initial application and 75 per cent of those asylum seekers refused permission on their initial application are then granted asylum on appeal.

The UK government is spending billions of taxpayers’ money on increasingly absurd schemes to store people rather than simply dealing with the applications so that the people concerned can do what they want – namely, to work and make homes to improve themselves and their families and contribute to the UK economy.

Can I suggest that money is spent on recruiting, training and retaining more Home Office staff to process the applications from the people who manage to get to the UK?

Julia A Hatch

Puglia, Italy