The tumbling Tories are killing their electoral prospects nicely

Rishi Sunak can complain until the school ceilings come down but it won’t wash. As chancellor, he made political choices, many of them with a macho mentality fuelled by Brexit.

The tumbling Tories are killing their electoral prospects nicely, and making the unreal very real indeed. I doubt if any of these dreary damaging souls, who seem to have been around forever, will be missed, along with the daily dramas of disguised incompetence.

Collin Rossini

Essex

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Sunak and his government are pursuing a scorched earth policy. Increasingly resigned to losing the next election, they are determined to be as destructive as they can with regard to the NHS, education, transport and the economy so that the situation their successors inherit will be so irreparable that the electorate will have no alternative other than to reject the successors at the first available opportunity.

In warfare, scorched earth policy has been outlawed. In today’s Tory government, unfortunately, it is very much in operation.

Bashyr Aziz

Staffordshire

While headteachers are being castigated for not reporting on the structural integrity of their buildings, a task they are surely not qualified to carry out, it seems no time has been wasted in employing surveyors to inspect the Houses of Parliament.

Why, is the prime minister not able to do this himself?

Geoff Forward

Stirling

What hypocritical nonsense Jordan Henderson spouted in his apology to the LGBT+ community.

In my opinion he, and the other money-grabbers who gave away their moral standing, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

As a result of the vast fortune made from oil, the Saudi royal family has embarked on a period of “sportswashing”. The Saudi money appears too tempting for the world’s professional footballers to refuse. Is it professional to lend one’s name to such an incredibly overt advertisement for such a cruel and corrupt regime? No!

Henderson alludes to, by his sell out to the Saudis, that he may change the situation in the country. What a naive footballer he is! Does he have the nerve to challenge the Saudi king about the lack of human rights of his own people or those killed for disagreeing with him? I think not!

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

A recent editorial in The Independent included a long list of what is not working in our country, after 13 years of Tory misrule. Absent from your list of shame was defence. The Tories have always claimed to be strong on this but all our hunter-killer submarines (SSNs) were recently tied up to a jetty instead of at least one being operationally available at sea.

This was not the only time this has occurred under this government. I cannot speak for the other two services but, as a former Royal Navy submarine captain, I can say that my old service – and the navy in general – is in a poor state. Thirteen years of underfunding and poor planning by the Ministry of Defence has resulted in a totally inadequate fleet both above and below the waves.

I am deeply concerned by reports from within the submarine branch of low morale, people opting out and high divorce rates among families due to the excessive sea time needed to fill the gap caused by too few hulls to meet the tasks we expect of the senior service. I suspect my army and air force peers have similar concerns.

The previous defence secretary fought hard for new money to restore the fleet – he recognised that numbers count – but he has now been replaced by a very smooth-talking political “yes man” who, it is reported, is in post mainly to resist calls for more money. We are an island nation; defence of the seas is what we expect but to do that we need more ships… and definitely more submarines.

Robert Forsyth

Royal Navy commander (retired), Deddington