By now policy should beat personality – sadly both Labour and Tory conferences show it still doesn’t

Have there ever been more vacuous damp squib conferences from the main two parties?

First, we had spineless Keir Starmer saying Labour would at some point come up with a plan for government whilst revealing his Labour idols as Tony Blair and former chancellor/prime minister Gordon Brown, who left the country in debt by a trillion pounds without the aid of a pandemic. Second, we had blustering Boris Johnson with his promise of a radical new way of life for us all, minus any detail of how it will be achieved.

Our choice is no better than they had in the USA and our politicians have become so obsessed with childish point-scoring and name calling that we all know we will carry on with the same ways of doing things that has got us to the point we are in now.

Assuming all politicians want to make us all better off – and why wouldn’t they, as that would be a vote winner – you would think policy would become more important than personality. Instead of divisive language by the likes of Angela Rayner, they might actually work together now and again to create a happier, fairer place for us all.

Richard Whiteside

Halifax

So, Dominic Raab thinks “misogyny” can be directed by a woman against a man, just as by a man against a woman. That’s not very clever for a government which reckons to be led by a distinguished linguist.

Derived from the Greek words “misos” meaning hatred, and “gunos” meaning woman, it is not hard to work out. But then, we have plenty of evidence that this government’s opinion of the whole electorate is low, contemptuous in fact.

To conclude a political conference with a speech consisting of zero content, poor jokes and meaningless soundbites from a clown at the lectern, when outside are shortages, food banks and the spectre of a winter of discontent, just about says it all.

I reckon the word Raab was struggling to recall marries together “misos” with “anthropos” (humankind). A government not of the people, not for the people, and led by misanthropes.

Reverend Peter Sharp

Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire

I predict that many of my female relatives, friends and neighbours will shortly be exhibiting misandrist behaviour. In a limited and specific way of course, namely towards Dominic Raab, after his totally clueless comments on Wednesday at the Conservative conference, when he all but admitted not knowing what misogyny means.

I wonder, when did the general public get the dubious honour of having to educate senior ministers in the use of the English language?

Robert Boston

Kingshill, Kent

Boris Johnson does not take the electorate for fools, as Graham Jarvis in Letters suggests. He understands the electorate only too well. He “gets” that, of the people inclined to actually vote, a sufficient number are disinterested in the plight of others. To these he offers justification for their joint complacency.

He does not care what the others think because he believes he does not need them to achieve a parliamentary majority at the next election. Indeed, outraging the “woke brigade” serves to bind the ties with his followers.

Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister is a symptom of our plight rather than its cause.

Nick Donnelly

Dorset

The prime minister continues to stoke a culture war against those he claims would “rewrite history”, provoking jingoistic indignation among his faithful followers by sanitising the truth. The history of the UK continues to be told, on our TV screens, as the story of the rich and powerful; of kings and queens, people living in big houses and the glorious days of imperial power and influence. As a consequence, the nation continues to be in awe of the rich and deferential to those in positions of power. And that is how they want to keep it.

It is not a “rewriting of history” that is being proposed but a telling of the history that has been ignored by those whose interests lie in maintaining the status quo. The Tories fear that the truth of centuries of exploitation that has kept wealth and influence in the same privileged hands will finally be exposed.

The town in which I live is dominated to this day by the wealth and influence of a country landowner funded, in the first instance, by the huge wealth that was derived from the slave trade and the exploitive practices of the East India Company. Those who traded in slaves were paid large sums by way of compensation for their losses, whilst no reparations have been made to the displaced, exploited and lost. This story is seldom told; the common people should keep quiet and be grateful for whatever crumbs the rich allow to fall from their overladen tables.

Graham Powell

Cirencester