Tories should be learning from their failures, not falling into anarchy

The fact that Suella Braverman has now blasted Kemi Badenoch – hot on the heels of Badenoch’s alleged blasting of Rishi Sunak at the first meeting of the 1922 Committee since the election – shows that discipline within the Conservatives is all but lost.

At a time when the party is supposed to be learning lessons from a record defeat, it instead falls into a state of anarchy.

Bearing in mind that David Cameron, the first Tory prime minister after John Major, wasn’t even elected as an MP until four years into Tony Blair’s tenure – and with arguably their best candidate, Penny Mordaunt, losing her seat – one can’t help but feel that history may be about to repeat itself.

It would certainly give Keir Starmer a very good chance to not just make his mark on the country, but also turn our economy back into a success for the long-term once again.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

Some advice for the Tories: if you wish to unite and restore your party, setting out your personal viewpoints on social media may not be the best way to do so. May I suggest you keep your dirty laundry and ideas to yourselves?

You would be better getting in a room and locking the door until you have worked it all out. Saying bad things about each other in public makes it impossible to reconcile… oh no, wait. It might already be too late.

Laura Dawson

Harpenden

The ongoing discussion about water companies and customers’ bills seems to have ignored the  incompetence and gross inefficiency displayed in the 30 years since privatisation. Since then, our service – the quality of drinking water and waste-water disposal – has nosedived, while bills have risen.

And yet Thames Water has an eye-watering debt pile of £18bn and continues to pay dividends and bonuses to staff. Instead of using bill payers’ money to repair their ancient water infrastructure, which is wasting 600l of water per day, or build new reservoirs, they have wasted our money.

Where has it gone? Why should bill-payers pay twice for such extravagant mismanagement – and why has this business not been adequately regulated by Ofwat?

Recently, I received an email from Thames Water informing me that they were planning to spend £19bn over the next five years improving infrastructure. They ought to have improved it decades ago!

A possible 44 per cent rise in bills would be an affront to British people. For too long have we suffered from supply interruption, hosepipe bans, leaking pipes, lack of reservoirs, rivers and underground water being depleted and waste water poisoning our ecosystems.

Our new government must reappraise Ofwat’s role in this debacle and make changes to their remit – or else get rid of such an ineffective quango.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

The Independent’s recent article on arsenic levels in tampons is deeply shocking and shows, once again, why we need regulation.

Many metals like lead have no safe level of exposure, and the vulva is a very absorbent place. Health effects associated with exposure to some of these metals include cancer, infertility, damage to the liver, kidney and brain and – in the specific case of lead – neurological and development damage to a developing foetus.

We are not allowed to see what anti-odour or anti-microbial substances manufacturers secretly add to period products, or what materials they are made from. This is why we need to urgently regulate all period products, plus have a requirement to list all the ingredients on the label.

Wen (the Women’s Environmental Network) is calling for the new Labour government to create a Menstrual Health, Dignity and Sustainability Act in the UK, to address the health and waste impacts of sanitary products, as well as period equity, education, product regulation, and to challenge stigma and taboos.

We need to stop seeing toxic chemicals and metals in a sanitary product used by millions of women. Our health needs to be prioritised above all else.

Helen Lynn

Wen’s health adviser and environmenstrual campaign lead