Matt Hancock’s blame game proves that all Labour needs to win is integrity

The front, the sheer brass neck of Matt Hancock! Now the staff are blamed by him for the spread of coronavirus within care homes, and the many consequent deaths, rather than the politicians in charge – himself in particular. What effrontery! What an insult to those low-paid, overworked and exhausted people as they tried to care for those in their charge, endangering themselves in the process as inadequate protective clothing was provided by this useless government.

Please, please can we be rid of this appalling gang of Tories now? All Labour have to do is demonstrate genuine integrity and respect for the electorate and they’ll be a shoo-in.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

Rishi Sunak, to be fair, has barely got his feet under the table, but there is a continuing sense that the government is trapped in the headlights, faced with so many issues and not knowing where to start or how to find solutions.

Many, if not most, of these issues are of course of their own making: deep-rooted structural problems which the Tories over a dozen years have either ignored or even deliberately refused to accept as serious faults in British society.

The Tories cannot now win the next election, and if the right of the party brings the government down prematurely, so much the better. But this is a longer-term existential issue for the Tory party, unless it can see off the ideologues of the right and wean itself off huge handouts from often dubious commercial interests and influence.

But life will not be easy, either, for a Starmer government, even with a lot of voter goodwill, thanks significantly to the Brexit elephant in the room. The neglected structural problems and damage from Brexit will take years to recover from, even with much better quality governance.

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

John Rentoul may be correct in pointing out that the Chester by-election was “not the walkover people think it is”. Nonetheless, for a Labour Party which as little as a year ago believed it would take at least two general elections before it could even contemplate returning to government, Thursday’s swing for Sam Dixon more than reverses the swing away from her predecessor in 2019. It is markedly similar to the 1997 swing, when Labour not only won Chester from a near-150-year Tory and Liberal monopoly, but was part of the Blair landslide that left the Tories in the wilderness for 13 years.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire

A Qatari official recently admitted that 400 to 500 workers had died during the construction of the World Cup stadiums and associated facilities. I assume that Fifa officials consider that six or seven deaths per match played is a justifiable cost for the entertainment and the profits generated.

Steve Kovar

Wiltshire

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Matt Hancock blames care-home staff rather than his own Tory government for the excess deaths in care homes from Covid. He does so rather than admit that the deaths were largely due to his, and this Tory government’s, sheer incompetence.

Early in the pandemic, many patients were prematurely discharged from hospitals into care homes without first being tested for the virus. This helped spread Covid into an already vulnerable population. Yes, some care-home staff may have been forced to work whilst infectious, but this was largely due to not being able to afford to take time off, due initially to the absence of paid sick leave, although this was belatedly addressed, and to dangerous levels of understaffing within the care sector. It was not the fault of the hard-working staff.

Debbie Boote

Nottingham