Trump’s waged a war on paper straws with his Sharpie pen

President Trump posted: “I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for paper straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!”, and so ends another environmental protection step. (”Making pollutants great again: Trump says he’s bringing back plastic straws in new executive order”, Friday 7 February)

The plastic straws might be an option if they were multi-use, but that's not the reality and they usually end up in bins and eventually in tips. Plastic takes a long time to break down, whereas paper "dissolves in your mouth!", according to the president.

The climate is changing; the environment is being damaged and yet a single scrawl from that Sharpie pen only makes it worse.

Let's take a straw poll as to whether this will be a positive for the environment. Actually, there's no need – the answer is obvious.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Box Hill

How can this government hope to be taken seriously when they criticise other states for brutal treatment of prisoners? (”The UN has condemned the ‘psychological torture’ of IPP – when will the UK government?”, Saturday 8 February)

I naively assumed when Labour took power that we would see an end to the insupportable detention of these prisoners – many of whom were incarcerated for relatively minor crimes when they were young.

Yet another of my “red lines” crossed.

David Felton

Crewe

I was brought up to believe that the use of foul language shows a lack of vocabulary, and so I have despaired over its use by modern politicians in their private conversations.

But Andrew Gwynne breaks new ground in his use of it in an email to a pensioner constituent. (”Health minister Andrew Gwynne sacked over WhatsApp messages”, Sunday 9 February)

He is not fit to be an MP – let alone a minister.

Mike McMorran

Bournemouth