I’d rather have Angela Rayner’s blunt but ‘honest’ words than ‘polished’ Tory lies

I was a lifelong Conservative voter until 2016. For the last year-and-a-half, I have striven to perform a damage-limitation job, working as a staff nurse in a care home setting, alongside an exemplary team of colleagues.  “Appalling” (Grant Shapps’ word for Angela Rayner’s language) decisions have been made by a self-serving government, employing the same duplicitous tactics that were used to seduce the hardworking people of this country to turn away from Europe. We are currently endeavouring to surmount the predictable consequences.

“Yahoo” politics takes many forms. I continue to be repelled by the “polished” manner in which an Eton-educated Oxford graduate and his similarly qualified colleagues have used their so-called superior language skills to dismiss, insult and lie to so many sections of our society time and time again in recent years.

Sadly, now, I feel that nothing short of a more direct and honest approach is required to open the eyes of the electorate more fully to the way in which they are being so skilfully manipulated.

Angela Rayner’s is one of the most authentic examples I have witnessed so far. It is a desperate reaction to desperate times. I am beginning to harbour a hope for the next election. I sincerely trust I, as far from a political expert as it is possible to be, will not be the only one to recognise and act on it.

Carolyn Gilmour

London

Hamish McRae is absolutely right to highlight problems with the relentless “efficiency model” pursued by manufacturing and other businesses. But call it by whatever ugly name you like (“reshoring, backshoring, nearshoring”), it is not the answer - as our government is amply demonstrating at present.

For centuries, industrialised economies have relied on access to three things: capital, labour and physical raw materials. In the pursuit of the most goods for the least cost, at times of stress this has involved slavery or access to very cheap labour, the invasion of countries to secure access to raw materials and the concentration of wealth to secure funds. More and more of the world is either fed up with this or is doing it themselves.

Faced with the political realities of that, the UK has run away from the give and take involved in seeking a negotiated solution and instead has pulled up the drawbridge and seems prepared to drive ships – or whatever else is at hand – at people seeking a better life for themselves at the same time as helping us to fulfil our desires.

If we want mobile phones, we will need to access raw materials from many unstable countries without invading or relying on others to invade us. Helping other countries to develop energy stability is needed as we all seek to prevent the need for mass migration. Regional, national and international battles over access to income and capital will affect us all unless we tackle systemic inequality.

Simply stockpiling raw materials to feed UK-based industries does exactly what this current government specialises in. Isolating itself from others, shying away from shared problem-solving ahead of shared solutions, kicking the can down the road and hoping problems will go away.

Gary Wiltshire

Isle of Mull

We write in solidarity with imprisoned Bahraini academic and human-rights defender Dr Abduljalil AlSingace, who has been on hunger strike since 8 July, losing over 20kg, and has been in hospital since 18 July. He is protesting against persistent mistreatment by prison authorities and demanding a book he wrote in prison on Bahrain’s culture and dialects, to which he dedicated four years of research, be returned, following its confiscation in April.

AlSingace has spent over 10 years in prison since being sentenced to life for his peaceful activism during Bahrain’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising. The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry documented severe torture against AlSingace following his arrest, and UN experts and rights groups have reported mistreatment and medical negligence throughout his imprisonment. The UN Human Rights Committee has warned that the national security law used to convict AlSingace is used to persecute “human-rights defenders and activists”.

Some 16 rights groups, 101 global academics and numerous British parliamentarians have called on Bahrain, a close UK ally, to meet AlSingace’s demands and order his release. Yet despite calling for the release of prominent human-rights defenders imprisoned by hostile states, the UK government has made no substantive statement, instead repeating false assurances from Bahrain about his case.

This silence risks emboldening Bahrain in their criminalisation of peaceful dissent and torture of dissidents. The UK government must condemn Bahrain’s persecution of AlSingace, call for the return of his intellectual property and immediate and unconditional release. This miscarriage of justice must end.

Sir Peter Bottomley MP

Conservative Father of the House of Commons, Worthing West

Sir Ed Davey MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Kingston and Surbiton

Ian Blackford MP

Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, Ross, Skye and Lochaber

For a full list of signatures, click here.

I’ve been wondering over the weekend whether the people causing unnecessary queues at petrol stations have their car boots full of toilet rolls that they purchased during their last panic attack?

Michael Pate

Preston

The letter from Graham Barlow illustrates the depths to which our politicians stoop when attempting to catch headlines.

Angela Rayner will not care one iota that voters, of all colours, will be offended at such boorish, infantile and unnecessary foul mouth rhetoric. Ms Rayner, like Mr Johnson, needs to employ a better scriptwriter as this offensive language only serves to undermine the message from the Labour Party.

It will serve the Conservative Party better than Labour in the long run. To think that Ms Rayner might one day be explaining the British point of view to, say, Mr Biden is unthinkable.

Ms Rayner no doubt is passionate about the Labour Party’s message and is trying to boost her chances of catching voters’ attention. She probably has caught voters’ eyes, but for all the wrong reasons.

It is a fallacy to believe that headline-grabbing is either necessary or will be rewarded with rhetoric of the type Ms Rayner espoused. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe the electorate is able to identify a party to vote for if manifestos and intent are clearly and honestly laid out.

The disrespectful language serves to illustrate Ms Rayner’s lack of restraint and inexperience in public office, or any office for that matter, and she now ought to grow up and apologise for such unnecessary language.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke