It’s time to stop the Tories, not stop the boats

At the beginning of a week which will end with two strike days by consultants fighting for a wage that matches their responsibilities, comes the news that home secretary Suella Braverman is planning to spend £360m on new detention centres designed to accommodate 1,000 asylum seekers.

This is in addition to the £480m the government pledged to fund the Anglo-French initiative to “stop the boats”, the £140m spent on the camp for asylum seekers in Rwanda and the £3m squandered on the Legionella-infested barge for asylum seekers, the Bibby Stockholm.

Treating asylum seekers as criminals to be imprisoned is far costlier than treating them like human beings deserving of compassion.

The Tories, who bleat there’s “no money” to pay consultants, junior doctors and other key workers a living wage, seem to have unlimited amounts of money to fund Braverman’s vendetta against asylum seekers.

It’s time to stop the Tories, not stop the boats.

Sasha Simic

London

I am becoming increasingly reluctant to read the excellent articles in your paper when it comes to our current government. I find many of their choices very disturbing, many of them make me angry and leave me, at times, feeling very depressed both about our country and the fate of the planet.

Today’s prime example is by Holly Bancroft regarding the Afghan wife of a British man. How much lower can the government sink? And whilst I have every sympathy with the difficulties facing the NHS, which is always blamed on Covid but is really the result of underfunding over the last 13 years, I find the article by Rebecca Thomas and the plight of an anorexic young girl impossible to comprehend.

Every day more wildfires are reported, which are not only putting so much more carbon into the atmosphere but are destroying the trees which could remove it. Yet more licences for North Sea oil are been granted to “ensure the future safety of our energy supplies”. When that future arrives there is a great possibility that the planet will have become uninhabitable.

Margaret Crosby

Herts

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer are going all-out to muddle together the world’s most impotent environmental policies. And Britons are being forced to deal with the grim inflationary consequences.

Starmer this week scrapped Labour’s commitment to introduce low-emission zones in cities across the UK. Earlier this month Starmer branded Just Stop Oil protestors “contemptible” and said he would not tear up the new 100 drilling licenses granted by the Conservatives.

Reneging on key environmental pledges is nothing new in Whitehall and Westminster. And almost always cowardly climbdowns have ruinous consequences further down the line. In 2013 then-PM David Cameron ordered aides “get rid of all the green crap”. A decade later, this is a decision that now costs UK households about £170 a year each on their energy bills due to a lack of home insulation.

As a result of this kind of dubious political posturing, the UK’s dependence on Norway for natural gas could grow by some 65 per cent by 2035. And while we could be a global leader in the export of renewables, instead we are slaves to eye-wateringly expensive fossil fuel imports from around the world.

The fossils of UK plc have been quick to take advantage of Westminster’s largesse. In June, Shell abandoned plans to cut oil production each year for the rest of the decade. While February saw BP scale back plans to cut carbon emissions from its previous stated target of 45 per cent, to a “now envisaged” 25 per cent. Britain’s dirty economy is going backwards at speed because we are deluding ourselves that words equal deeds.

Britain has become a laughing stock on environmental issues – while our competitors power ahead to net zero. Around the world governments are using judicious regulation and spending to stimulate the economy and fend off stagflation. The US has managed to combine a $369bn (£289bn) stimulus for the green economy while recording a real inflation rate less than half that of the UK. Biden’s Invent Here, Make Here Act has seen the US become an unlikely crucible for green innovation too.

There are few forces in the British economy as inflationary as a thriving fossil fuel sector. Good environmental policies save voters money and protect the planet their children will inherit. Fortunately, next year’s general election will punish Westminster’s eco-cowards. Any winning manifesto will have to have a strong green agenda to stand a real chance of ballot box success.

Sian Sutherland

Co-Founder, A Plastic Planet + PlasticFree

Enough is enough, for years now we have listened to scientists talking about the impact of climate change and how bad it is going to be... but clearly, we’ve already run out of time.

Every country so far has sat on its collective a*** with plans that will only be implemented decades in the future. Climate change is happening now.

Let’s look at the worldwide fires happening across the globe right now. So many lives lost but no one country has come up with any real plan to combat it.

We can’t stop climate change but we have to prepare for its consequences. I’m sorry to be pessimistic but we need to get real if humanity is to survive to the 31st century.

Franklin Gordon

Address supplied

I read your editorial with interest and agreement. There is naturally a feeling of deflation but that should not in any way, shape or form take away our sense of communal pride in what they have achieved and the way they have conducted themselves on and off the field, is indeed to be commended.

But what I was concerned about and hadn’t appreciated was the lack of financial parity with men’s football. It is surely a travesty that Sarena Wiegman is paid a paltry sum, compared with Gareth Southgate’s millions. This needs urgent attention and remedial action in order to bring in a financial level playing field. Although in saying that, sometimes the sums involved for male football players is often so extreme that it seems off the radar.

Regardless, this now should be a watershed moment and the “powers that be” should stop patronising women’s football and get behind them alongside the wider public. As someone who is not a natural football fan, this campaign actually did stir and inspire me, as it did so many others. England has a very valuable sporting asset in the Lionesses and this should be extolled because their innate virtues of tenacity, bravery and brilliance have come home to all of us.

Judith A Daniels

Norfolk