Tory MPs should stop showering Amber Rudd with accolades given she’s resigned in disgrace

Amber Rudd’s resignation manifests her “decency, integrity, courage and professionalism”, according to her colleagues.

Those accolades from various Conservative MPs, including cabinet ministers, ignore the fact that Rudd clung to office and resigned only when the evidence was overwhelming that either she lied or was incompetent or possessed a very bad memory – and then deployed obfuscation to try to save herself.

Those accolades overlook the fact that she presided over Home Office policies that led to some innocent British citizens – those who “looked like immigrants” – losing jobs, health services and benefits, and even being thrown into detention and threatened with deportation.

They also ignore, of course, the fact that Rudd supported government policies that have led to vast suffering and deaths for citizens trapped into rough sleeping, homelessness, benefit cuts, inadequate social care, or queueing at the underfunded NHS – to say nothing of those people maimed or killed in the Yemen courtesy of her government’s support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Let us resist the Conservatives’ immediate rewriting of history for the benefit of Rudd – and themselves.

Peter Cave
London W1

Amber Rudd told MPs that there were no targets for deportation while concurrently sending and receiving letters that many would say were, at the very least, descriptive of targets relating to deportation.

Perhaps one element could be explained to me.

Should another public servant, such as a police chief constable, either through action or inaction allow something to happen that is deemed worthy of resignation irrespective of other factors (such as lack of budget or it being a policy they inherited) do they:

a) resign, retire and fade from public view; or

b) resign and go back to walking the beat for a few months before being promoted back to a level at least comparable with their previous post. All the while receiving plaudits from colleagues for being talented, experienced and capable rather than concern being shown for those affected by the original decision making process.

In what other walk of life, apart from parliament, is option B allowable?

Alan Gregory MBA, MIoD, MCMI, MBCS
Cheadle, Staffordshire

At last, common sense has prevailed and the home secretary has now become the former home secretary. She’s gone and like so many cabinet ministers before her, soon to be banished to the back benches (and not a moment too soon). A worry for this country is, I think, the number of Conservatives who stand by her and are sorry to see her go.

Some of these people hold prominent government positions: Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Brandon Lewis and of course the “big cheese” herself, Theresa May.

Amber Rudd left only when the contradictions of her statements overflowed out the top of her in box. But why resign? She obviously doesn’t look in her inbox, or she would have seen the targets she never had. How low can the standards of these people go.

Budge up on the back benches: another one on the way.

David Higgins
Yeovil

So Amber Rudd has resigned because she misled parliament either through complicity or error. Ever since the wholesale transfer of ministry functions to executive agencies in the early 1980s, there has been a deliberate separation of the highest level of civil servants and ministers from the managers and staff responsible for delivery.

This is convenient for the former, as they can focus on elegantly crafted directives, policies, targets and their careers without requiring an understanding of the practicalities of policy nor the day-to-day issues of managing people.

When the policy manifestly fails through its very impracticality, who is to blame? Why, of course, it is that lesser class of person: the executive managers and the staff. Ministerial responsibility is a thing of the past. Rudd resigned because she was caught out in the political game. The Windrush generation and the Home Office and its agencies are merely collateral damage.

Dr Tim Rubidge
Salisbury

Decapitating pigs’ heads in an attempt to revive their brains is shocking, unethical, and bad science. To understand more about human disorders and diseases, the world’s most forward-thinking scientists are developing and using methods that supersede the crude use of animals and that are actually relevant to human health. The reason is simple: experiments on animals don’t work. New studies show that 90 per cent of them fail to lead to therapies for humans and 92 per cent of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human trials.

Innovative technologies such as “mini brains”, tiny bundles of human brain cells, and the “brain on a chip” are set to revolutionise drug testing and are already helping to advance our understanding of the complexities of the human brain.

Rather than blurring the barriers between life and death, we must, first and foremost, consider the animals deemed expendable in this disturbing, curiosity-driven exercise. Pigs are intelligent, sensitive, and emotionally sophisticated beings. They can remember positive and negative experiences, solve complex puzzles, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates. Neither they nor any other animal should be used for experimentation, food, clothing, or any other purpose.

Julia Baines, science policy adviser, Peta

His new track, in which he sings “whoopedy-scoop, scoopedy-whoop-de-poop”, is obviously a plea to dog owners to clear up after them.

H Kilborn
Kings Hill