The infected blood cover-up has exposed how deep corruption has become in our country

I would like to make a plea to Sir Keir Starmer. While you are steadfastly cultivating a cautious, moderate approach to secure the votes of previous Tory voters, please do not neglect the wishes of other potential Labour supporters.

Our country is in serious trouble. It is painful to see the exposure of how deep corruption has become in government, business and the civil service. We all sensed it, but the confirmation is still shocking. Recent scandals almost defy belief, with large numbers of ordinary, innocent citizens having had their lives totally devastated by neglect, malice and self-serving cover-ups.

Couple this with the equally distressing devastation of nature and what was once our rich, lovely countryside – the environmental implications of which are catastrophic – and I am sure I am far from alone in praying for a swift and radical improvement – from the top.

So please Sir Keir, show us you can be incisive and effective as well as cautious, with a clear commitment to pull us out of this shocking state of affairs.

It’s not all about tax and business, or the assumed preoccupations of the red wall voters.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

James Moore is right to state that we live in a society where those with power and influence protect themselves by routinely covering up crimes and misdemeanours at the expense of the vulnerable. We should be grateful to those campaigners who refuse to have their voices ignored, and to those honourable politicians who are prepared to stand out and support them.

The shameful culture of “denial, obfuscation, cover-up and…outright lies” is not just confined to the three miscarriages of justice that have been exposed in recent times, it runs deep within our society and is modelled all too frequently by our politicians.

We elect politicians to serve and keep us safe but all too often we are patronised, fed specious promises and kept from hearing the painful truths that will impact on our lives. We are in desperate need of a new breed of politicians who are prepared to represent their people and not just those who are able to exercise power and influence to serve themselves.

Graham Powell

Cirencester

It is hardly groundbreaking news that hypocrisy is as rife in the political world as it is sadly throughout society in general. However, I do find it particularly rich to witness the leaders of the Brexit vanguard and their still ardent supporters berating David Cameron (now Lord Cameron) over the Gibraltar negotiations. Many people warned before the Brexit referendum that leaving the EU would jeopardise the overseas dependent territory perched on the nether regions of Spain. The government did not listen, thus our departure from the largest free trade bloc in the world caused a monumental mess, which happens at present to see Gibraltar at the forefront. The former prime minister is attempting to address the border issues and painful as it is to admit it, he has more ability than some of his recent predecessors!

Finally, if anyone thinks that the incoming Labour government will lead us into the sunlit uplands, they are as delusional as the Brexit brigade. Keir Starmer and his ministers will have to spend an inordinate amount of time and expertise on the chaos caused by Brexit, not least the possibly intractable and hugely expensive border controls; this then by definition will leave other problems around the UK painfully unaddressed, of which there are too many to list.

Robert Boston

Kent

It’s more than a little churlish when the president of a country, that presumptuously describes itself as the “leader of the free world”, takes it upon himself to criticise the decisions of the ICC in seeking to charge Benjamin Netanyahu and his mate Yoav Gallant for war crimes.

The US itself is not a member of the ICC, along with other countries it labels “rogue states” such as Iraq and Libya.

Some have likened the decision of Prosecutor Karim Khan to unleashing a thunderbolt, rather apt I thought. In this case though, the targets will find that they have no effective equivalent of Patriot missiles or the Iron Dome capable of taking down a bolt from the blue that’s tipped with something deadlier - truth and reality.

Liam Power

Dundalk

There was a time when the opportunity, much less the right, to go to school was only available to a few: the rich, the city dwellers or just the boys. We now understand that everyone should have a right to education. So why do people choose not to go?

This is the question that must be answered for a solution to be found. What doesn’t need to happen is what the Department for Education has planned, involving the police to deal with absent students.

The reasons students may be absent from school are many, varied and sometimes valid.

Let students go to school, encourage them, but don’t force them to; it won’t work and involving the police is definitely the wrong approach.

Dennis Fitzgerald

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