Partygate and Beergate are dragging on – how must victims of serious crime feel?

Why does everything seem to take so long? Partygate has been running for months and seems never ending. Beergate enquiries, we read, are also going to take months for the police to investigate and these are the most minor of offences.

One can only imagine what victims of serious crime are put through by the police and courts as they wait for justice. The entire system is antiquated and not fit for purpose. Surely there must be a better way.

Paul Morrison

Glasgow

The degree of malice being directed at Keir Starmer is staggering. One example of relentlessly pejorative rhetoric is that Starmer was always “swigging” beer in Durham, never just drinking it.

The Tory MPs and their lackeys in the press know what they’re doing because they have form. They systematically attacked Ed Miliband and successfully fatally tarnished him. The relentless destruction of Jeremy Corbyn was an epic example of this contemptible abuse of their power.

Corbyn had become extremely popular and so heavy machinery was brought in to destroy him – and treacherous Labour people even helped with that one.

The outcome of the police investigation remains to be seen. Clearly, Jacob Rees Mogg has twigged that if they succeed in manoeuvring the resignation of Starmer, Johnson will have to resign too. These malicious Tories and their powerful friends should be careful what they wish for.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

The report on the first responders of Kharkiv is most touching – many ambulance drivers, having moved to safer areas, are replaced by young medical students who received on-the-job training as paramedics.

What tremendous courage they are showing; those who survive and are able to complete their studies will surely make fine doctors

Interestingly, in the same edition an article by Robert Fisk on the capture of Saddam Hussein brings back memories of 2003, when a US-led coalition with strong support from the UK invaded Iraq, ostensibly justified by Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. There was no evidence of any such weapons.

The reluctance of the west to become involved with the Ukraine war seems based largely on fears of an escalation of the conflict, leading to Russia’s unleashing of nuclear weapons of which the country has in abundance.  However, I venture to suggest that in 2003, the respective leaders of the US and UK, Messrs Bush and Blair, had the b******* which are sadly lacking in both current incumbents

The sheer wanton destruction of Ukraine to date is beyond belief. None of the normally accepted rules of international humanitarian law apply under the cold and callous leadership of Putin. It is nothing short of mass destruction, brought about with weapons which – granted – are not nuclear, but with an end result that’s hardly different.

With forecasts of the hostility continuing, it is surely not too late for an intervention by western powers, not necessarily using ground forces, to bring to an early conclusion the savage and completely unjustified treatment being meted out to Ukraine and its brave and courageous citizens.  Boris Johnson may not have the guts, but it could save his skin.

Ian Wingfield

Derbyshire

The best way to stop blue-on-blue attacks is to stop your MPs from breaking the rules in the first place, starting from the top. In the Conservative Party, that may, of course, be a tall order, but it’s worth a try in the name of decency and trust.

Take heed, opposition parties, you are not necessarily exempt from this advice either.

Alan Mackay

East Lothian

Correct me if I am wrong, but the last two previous Tory prime ministers promised to bring net migration down from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.

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Google searches reveal the latest figures to be from the mid-200,000s to 300,000. It would seem they have failed spectacularly in this aim. How incensed their foreigner-hating supporters and home secretaries, past and present, must be.

G Forward

Stirling

I often wish that the Northern Irish unionists would see that their actions have brought about the mess the country has been in. They gleefully were all for a border in the hope that it would cut them off from the rest of Ireland whereas when it arrived, to their horror, it cut them off from the rest of the UK.

While I’m no fan of Sinn Fein, the constant finger-pointing the DUP has done results in no winners. It fails to take any blame and it’s always Sinn Fein’s fault that things are the way they are. This ratcheting of tensions seems to want to get people on the street and cause havoc all the while decrying violence. They can’t have it both ways.

Personally, I would loathe it if Sinn Fein gets its wish in a united Ireland poll, because it would cause havoc to an Irish system that is ill-equipped for this to happen. That said, the DUP wanting a comically callous Tory government to fundamentally care about its plight seems like a gambler always putting another bet on the wrong horse because “this one’s going to be big, I can feel it”.

David Murphy

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