MPs accused of workplace sexual harassment should be treated just like anyone else

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

It seems that being an MP is a career move and has very little to do with working for the good of the country (Getty)

I have seen various Tory MPs this morning state that a certain senior male Tory MP and others should not be suspended from their posts until initial investigations have been completed.

Out here in the real world of real work, we would be suspended on any allegation being made and we would be investigated by our manager, not close work colleagues with an agenda.

One of these MPs has suggested that the answer is for drinking to be more controlled in the bars of Westminster – it beggars belief.

T Maunder
Leeds

If parliamentary whips use information on abusive behaviour to coerce the named perpetrator into voting as the party requires in return for secrecy, is that not blackmail? If so, then any whip behaving in this way should be dealt with by the legal system, and not supported by a parliamentary system that is centuries out of date.

The victims of this behaviour should have access to someone outside Parliament who can support them and advise on how the matter can be fully investigated.

Since I was eligible to vote, at the age of 21, I have always voted in both local and general elections. Now, at the ripe old age of 79 I wonder why I bothered. It seems that being an MP is a career move and has very little to do with working for the good of the country. Just like the “rotten borough” system was exactly what it said on the tin, it seems to me that the parliamentary career system we have today is fast producing greedy, abusive, manipulative, self-serving politicians who have lost sight of what their job should be.

Westminster has, urgently, got to clean up the selection system, the voting system and the parliamentary system to regain the trust and confidence of those of us who wish to continue to vote. A good start would be getting rid of the first past the post voting system, so that the electorate could feel that their vote really does count.

Gillian Munrow
Amersham

It’s time to rethink Brexit

We see much crystal-ball gazing about what would happen in the event of a soft Brexit, a hard Brexit, a no-deal Brexit and a long drawn-out sort of Brexit.

With the public wearying of it, and the mood shifting slightly, I would dearly love to see a realistic assessment of what might happen if, by whatever means, we abandoned Brexit.

In wanting that I don’t mean the opposite of “project fear”, but a realistic assessment by experts who can be trusted to speculate on such a scenario.

Patrick Cosgrove
Shropshire

I think we the public should force the Prime Minster into another general election, so that we can unseat those MPs who are no longer trusted.

It could also be an opportunity for us to be asked whether Brexit is a good choice, or should we now stay as members of the European Union.

My suspicion is that a good number of current MPs would not stand again.

Richard Grant
Hampshire

Gordon Brown always knew the Iraq war was about more than WMDs

Gordon Brown claims that prior to the invasion of Iraq, they “were all misled on the existence of WMDs”.

Days before the invasion, Mohamed ElBaradei told the Security Council that the International Atomic Energy Agency had “found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq”.

Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said there was “no evidence of prohibited weapons programmes”.

Nevertheless, the British Government joined in the attack “to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger”.

Dr John Doherty
Austria

Maybe we should give 16-year-olds the vote after all

I was instinctively against votes for 16-year-olds until I heard an analysis by economist and journalist Tim Harford on BBC Radio 4.

Given the four- or five-year delay between elections, many of those eligible to vote at 18 do not actually get the chance to do so until they are 20 or 21.

Similarly, if we allow 16- or 17-year-olds to vote that means they will probably get their first chance at 18 or 19 years old, which is exactly as Parliament intended.

Dr Nick Winstone-Cooper
South Wales

When it comes to mental illness, we should focus on prevention rather than cure

It is uplifting that mental health, which has been a taboo for a long time, is now generating a lot of public debates.

Mental illnesses manifest clinically but they capture the issues underpinning social and environmental justice.

Many fail to understand the inextricable links between poverty, homelessness, unemployment, social and economic stratification, industrialisation, economic liberalisation, climate change, income and gender inequalities, a lack of community engagement and citizen’s participation and non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, strokes, renal failure, mental illnesses and Alzheimer’s disease.

No health systems could cope with mass-casualty events, provide adequate residential care facilities and effectual treatment and care for victims.

Mental diseases are mainly avoidable and preventable. What the Government needs to do is implement the mantra that an ounce of prevention is worth – and better – than a pound of cure, and to view these challenges through the prism of social justice and sustainability.

Dr Munjed Farid al Qutob
London NW2