Theresa May should call a general election and finish Labour once and for all

The new Iron Lady has played her ace card with the formal triggering of Article 50 next week. With Labour imploding and Sturgeon’s Jacobite revolution defeated, the Prime Minister has one more wildcard left up her sleeve. She should do a hasty U-turn and play the general election trump card on 4 May which would become Super Thursday.

That would decide the shape of central and local government for half a decade. It would also allow her to put her Brexit plan and key policies such as grammar schools to the public. If she won with a majority of substance, she would then become the most powerful British politician since Thatcher.

It is in her power to shuffle the pack and let fate, Momentum and the people decide her fate.

Anthony Rodriguez
​Staines-upon-Thames

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has not been a failure. After years during which orthodox socialists were deprived of a Labour Party with which they could identify, Jeremy Corbyn has given them back their Labour Party and it is not surprising that they want to defend his achievement. Gaining power is not the only priority.

They also want a party that reflects their passionate socialist beliefs, in the hope that, eventually, the majority of voters will agree with them. In the meantime, if the voters reject them, that is a price that has to be paid if you want a party that you can believe in.

Michael Heppner
London, N21

It is reported that Jon Lansman, leader of the Momentum faction in the Labour Party, has said that if the current general secretary Len McCluskey wins the Unite Union election the union will affiliate to the faction and not to the party. This would make the Labour Party unelectable as it would not have sufficient money to fight an election, but also raises questions about the union’s support for Labour. And if a major union does not support Labour, why should anyone else?

However this report is questionable as Momentum is not a party and does not have the legal or political machinery to be a party. The assumption must be that Unite would be supporting a faction within the Labour Party, making the actions of the SDP in the 1980s seem small beer. But does McCluskey have any plans to affiliate his union to a faction? What is he saying to the union members? If there is a plan to withdraw the unions funding from the Opposition then the plan is more than just a union matter. The public deserve to know.

Trevor Fisher
Stafford

She became famous for singing about bluebirds and nightingales, but it’s pigeons and geese who have benefited the most from the kindness of Dame Vera Lynn, who turned 100 this week.

Dame Vera has long been a staunch supporter of the British troops, so she was understandably distressed to learn that pigeons – loyal birds who served the UK by delivering vital messages during both world wars – are being shipped to the Continent each year before being forced to fly back home across the hazardous English Channel.

“Separating pigeons from their mates and forcing them to fly, exhausted, across the vast Channel is an utterly cruel pastime,” she said after viewing Peta’s pigeon racing exposé. “With hundreds of thousands of birds lost at sea each year, the Channel has become a veritable bird graveyard for these forgotten heroes.”

Dame Vera has also taken Fortnum & Mason to task for selling foie gras even though its production is so cruel that it’s banned in the UK. In a letter to the retailer, she wrote: “For a department store with such a proud British heritage, it made me sad that you would wish to tarnish it by associating yourself with the force-feeding of animals.”

We hope people will be inspired by Dame Vera’s compassion to take a stand against cruelty by refusing to support these callous industries.

Jennifer White – Assistant Press Officer, Peta UK

Nicola Sturgeon urges English, Welsh and Northern Irish voters to move to Scotland if we support her opinions on Brexit and the single market. At which point she will welcome us with open arms.

But while I share her opinions on the current UK Government’s Brexit-at-any-cost attitude and dismay at the outcome of last year’s referendum, that is impractical for me, as it will be for a majority of remain voters outside Scotland. We have families, jobs, ties to our local communities and more.

But considering the vote was taken by the United Kingdom, and not the separate constituent nations of the UK, why will she not support people who voted the same way as she did who live in the other three nations but who still wish to live there? It couldn’t be that she is as intransigent as Theresa May is to the hopes and aspirations of those from whom she wishes to dissociate, could it? Perish the thought.

Michael O’Hare
​Middlesex

Many newspapers made a hash of not knowing the politics and preferences of the Scottish people last time the subject forced its way into their papers. I do hope this is not going to happen again. I write following the remarkably wide coverage of Ruth Davidson’s recent deftly-worded pronouncement that “the Scots do not want another referendum”. This may be literally true, but I assure you that the lack of will of the present Prime Minister (whose repeated insistence on a “partnership of equals” is no longer funny) to negotiate with Nicola Sturgeon may leave us no option but to have one anyway. And have it we will, if it is forced upon us. That Nigel Farage still stokes headlines with his own fantasy opinions is difficult enough to have to stomach without Davidson’s being piled in for good measure.

In short, “Scots do not want a referendum” may indeed be true, Ruth. But they want even less an under-researched, roundly-advised-against and unrepresentative-of-the-UK-as-a-whole-and-Scotland-in-particular nonsense arrogantly chucked in our direction as a “plan” because Westminster says so. And for dead certain sure, the voting pattern of Scotland over more decades than I care to remember shows, more than anything, they do not want the Tory party, or you, driving Scotland’s future.

Janice Galloway
Glasgow