The new Tory leader must go back to the people – only a general election will give them a mandate to rule

As the candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party set out their stalls, it seems that their principal ambition is to roll back years of progress on women’s rights and civil liberties.

First Jeremy Hunt proposes to continue his legacy of NHS cuts by slashing the time limit on abortion from 24 weeks to only 12, presumably in an effort to suck up the support of religious extremists and misogynists; then Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – in an era of austerity, no less, when the only booming sectors left in our country are food banks and homelessness – proposes tax cuts for the most well-off, offset against an increase in national insurance that would hit everybody.

It is clear that the campaign to be our next prime minister is only making an effort to appeal to members of the Conservative Party itself – who are overwhelmingly male, pale and ever-so-stale – while completely ignoring the bulk of the electorate, whose interests leaders ought to endeavour to represent. Take care to remember in this regard that we are already governed by a party that effectively had to buy its majority after the last election.

I would contend that if a party in government changes leader and that new leader proposes a substantially different course to that of their predecessor, then that government’s mandate is lost. A general election must be called, because failure to put any new agenda to a public vote would make a mockery of our democracy.

Julian Self
Wolverton

I am not surprised that so many of the contenders hoping to succeed Theresa May have taken drugs. If I was a leading Tory, I’d probably have resorted to using them too.

Roger Hinds
Surrey

Michael Gove probably only released details of his cocaine use because someone had threatened him with exposure. Does this make Gove unfit for office? Maybe! But the one who threatened to release the information, possibly in an attempt at political blackmail, is even less befitted for office than Gove is. Was this person another MP?

Name and address supplied
Stretford

Regarding Boris Johnson’s comparison of himself with Odysseus, able to pass through Scylla and Charybdis (Farage and Corbyn), has he remembered that his hero only survived because his crew tied him up? Perhaps that is why he has been strangely quiet during the party leadership campaign.

Jerome Phillips
Hitchin

I am utterly disappointed to have read the article Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Baku and why sport and politics cannot be separated, published on The Independent website on 25 May.

Mkhitaryan said he did not feel safe travelling to Baku for the Europa League final. The reality is different.

There were repeated safety guarantees by almost every Azerbaijani government authority; 25 Armenian athletes and other members of Armenian delegation felt totally safe in Azerbaijan when they stayed in Baku for European Games in 2015, where an Armenian boxer was awarded his silver medal by Azerbaijan’s president.

In fact, Azerbaijan even relaxed its laws and said that Mkhitaryan would be able to travel to Azerbaijan despite having visited the occupied territories of Azerbaijan without my government’s consent. Doing so usually results in denial of entrance.

The point is this: anyone deciding not to go to the Europa League final, despite dozens of guarantees, was probably doing so on political grounds.

I also oppose to vehemently biased and unfounded claims in the article with regard to purported events in Baku.

Tahir Taghizade, ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the UK

Over the past decade, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed human rights abuses and a string of instances of corporate, government and intelligence agency corruption. As scholars and citizens concerned with the protection of whistleblowers and a free press, with the ability to hold government to account for such abuses we call for the immediate release of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning from prison.

We reiterate the concerns of the United Nations special rapporteurs regarding the ongoing mistreatment of Mr Assange and Ms Manning by the US and UK authorities, and affirm the statement of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that “the right of Mr Assange to personal liberty should be restored”.

Professor Janet Grant (Emerita Professor, Open University)

Professor Iain Munro (Newcastle University)

Professor Kirstie Ball (St Andrews University)

Professor Gabriella Coleman (McGill University)

Professor Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths University)

Professor Mehdi Boussebaa (Glasgow University)

Professor Marianna Fotaki (Warwick University)

Professor David Miller (Bristol University)

Professor Tim Hayward (Edinburgh University)

Professor David Courpasson (EM-Lyon Business School)

Professor Dima Younes (EM-Lyon Business School)

Professor Stefano Harney (Singapore University)

Professor Monika Kostera (Jagiellonian University and Södertörn University)

Professor Crawford Spence (Kings College London)

Professor Dwayne Winseck (Carleton University)

Professor Daniel Muzio (York University)

Professor Prem Sikka (Sheffield University)

Professor Peter Fleming (University of Technology Sydney)

Professor Tony McCaffery (Emeritus Professor, University of Sussex)

Professor David Lewis (Middlesex University)

Professor Bobby Banerjee (City University)

Professor Benedetta Brevini (Sydney University)

Professor John Keane (Sydney University)

Professor Carl Rhodes (University Technology Sydney)

Professor Eva Tsahuridu (RMIT University)

Professor AJ Brown (Griffith University)

Professor Graham Murdoch (Loughborough University)

Professor Simon Cottle (Cardiff University)

Professor Hugh Willmott (Cardiff University, City University)

Professor Patrick McCurdy (Ottawa University)

Professor Alan Bradshaw (Royal Holloway – University of London)

Professor Mike Stewart (Emeritus Professor, Open University)

Professor Jenny Hocking (Emerita Professor, Monash University)

Professor Brian Martin (Emeritus Professor, Wollongong University)

Professor Cory Doctorow (Visiting Professor, Open University and novelist)

Mr Evgeny Morozov (Writer)

Dr Owain Slomovic-Jones (Open University)

Dr Wim Vandekerckhove (University of Greenwich)

Dr Suelette Dreyfus (University of Melbourne)

Dr Cristina Neesham (Swinburne University)

Dr Harsh Jha (Newcastle University)

Dr Piers Robinson (Co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies)

Dr. Philip Di Salvo (Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland)

Dr Andrea Teti (Aberdeen University)

Dr Einar Thorsen (Bournemouth University)

Dr Ewan MacKenzie (Newcastle University)

Mr Robert Tibbo (Human rights lawyer)

Ms Renata Avila (Human rights lawyer)

Mr John Kiriakou (former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations)

Ms Katharine Gun (GCHQ whistleblower)

Mr William Binney (former technical director of the National Security Agency)

Mr Craig Murray (former UK ambassador)

Ms. Jesselyn Radack (former Justice Department legal ethics advisor)

Mr Peter Tatchell (Human rights activist)

Mr Mark Curtis (Historian)

Mr Andrew Fowler (Journalist, writer)

Mr Vladimir Radomirovic (editor-in-chief of Pištaljka and president of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia)

Ms Naomi Colvin (Program director UK, Blueprint For Free Speech)