Labour is playing the same game as the Tories, and we’re all losing

Dave Brown’s cartoon of a weathercocking Starmer brilliantly follows Sian Sutherland’s recent letter in which she highlights Labour’s scrapping of their commitment to low-emission zones, their attitude to “Just Stop Oil” protestors (who are fervently and peacefully trying to bring about necessary change, albeit it sometimes inconveniently) and their unwillingness to revoke 100 new oil-drilling licences. Labour have also rowed back on its pledge to spend £28bn a year until 2030 on green projects funded by borrowing.

Never a Tory voter, I have generally supported Labour in the past but, in their attempt to gain power, it is disappointing to see them playing the same short-term game as the Tories. Labour’s U-turns on the vital green issues affecting us all are diminishing their sincerity and their integrity.

In my constituency, the Liberal Democrats are the only party who could oust the Tories and so I may vote for them at the next general election. However, if the emerging Liberal Democrats’ green policies also turn out to be inadequate, I will be voting for the Green Party.

John Rayner

North Dorset

I yearn like most people I imagine who read The Independent for a change of government. It seems that every day there is another demonstration of the paucity of talent remaining in the Conservative Party. We are left with a rump of ministers who are more keen to position themselves within the party to lead it into the wilderness than to do the jobs for which they draw down their salaries and perks.

They do this because they see the wilderness times as a sort of purgatory from which they can emerge as the new shade of blue party to lead.

If Keir Starmer is successful it will be to a large degree because we are fed up with the last 13 years and we are desperate and hope that any change will be better.

We should however be realistic that not much will be different and certainly not in the short term. Once the celebrations are over a Labour government will once more be beholden to its union leaders, and there will be some headline-grabbing revenge legislation and endless hopelessly idealistic motions from conference.

Instead let us hope for a “close shave” minority government for Starmer, backed by a Lib Dem group that will successfully force legislation for proportional voting. Let’s break this party system as it drags down the good government.

Elected leaders will be able to bring in all available talent, then perhaps we could realistically hope for an end to this relentless decline of the country we love.

Alastair Duncan

Winchester

Whilst I fully understand and share the outrage over criminals avoiding a personal appearance in the dock for sentencing, demands for enforcement need to be tempered by the unsavoury realities of what that might entail.

Apart from unseemly and potentially dangerous extended scuffles with custody officers, the more cruel or sadistic offenders, or simply the unrepentant egotists could (and already do) use the occasion to further humiliate victims and their families, intimidate witnesses, frighten jurors and in other ways seek to undermine the dignity of the occasion.

Other solutions should be sought and the person’s behaviour in response to sentencing recorded to assist future decision-making for those with any prospect of later release.

Arden Tomison

Bristol

Some 75 per cent of global corporations have now made “sustainable packaging commitments” to address plastic pollution. In parallel, policymakers draft regulations to remove single-use plastics or implement reimagined waste management systems. A crucial UN Global Plastics Treaty is currently being negotiated.

Despite this action, global plastic production has increased 20 times more rapidly than our capacity to recycle over the past ten years. Plastic Overshoot Day reveals 43 per cent of all plastic waste is projected to be mismanaged at the end of its life – equivalent to more than 68.5 million tonnes this year alone.

A business will analyse data at great lengths to future-proof its profit, but the full plastic footprint of a company is a metric that is often missed. Instead, the lens used by many is one that is blurred, providing a partial view of an organisation’s plastic impact.

Without fully understanding how pollution is created along a whole supply chain, commitments or government policies are set up to fail. A plastic footprint – the measurement of plastic leakage in the environment – is critical for effective pollution mitigation and to allow important industry commitments to succeed.

Just as carbon footprinting provides a foundation for a reduction in emissions, both industry and government must embrace the plastic footprint as the catalyst to achieve a circular model of waste management that addresses the plastic crisis and avoids the piecemeal approach we have today.

Sarah Perreard

Co-CEO & Stakeholder Engagement Lead, Earth Action

I can only agree in part with Judith A Daniel’s recent letter about what female football players are paid. Yes, they are worth the same as men, but Sarena Wiegman gets about £400,000, hardly a paltry sum. Is anyone, anyone at all, really worth more than that?

People working hard as carers, and doing other essential jobs for the minimum wage are lucky if they get £20,000 a year.

It’s good that the England team has inspired young girls to take up the sport, rather than merely watch it, and believe that they can do it as well as boys. But it’s regrettable that women’s football seems to be sinking to the same level as men’s, which appeals to people’s base instinct of tribalism in order to rake in more money.

As a society, we should get our priorities right and aim for less inequality. By all means, pay athletes to entertain and possibly inspire us. But let’s remember that winning and losing is often a matter of luck, that differences between the winners and the rest are often minuscule, and that football really isn’t as important as life and death.

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire