How long until the Tories oust Rishi Sunak?

It’s hardly surprising that the prime minister’s own popularity rating has hit an all-time low. Mortgage rates are at their highest for decades, even higher now than when Liz Truss was prime minister.

Instead of stopping the boats, a record number of asylum seekers recently slipped into our nation. And Rishi Sunak continues to ignore advice to publicly condemn the actions of Boris Johnson.

So whilst Boris claims to have lost his old phone password and with the civil war continuing in his own party, the question on my mind is: how long before Rishi Sunak loses the confidence of enough Conservative MPs to spark yet another leadership contest?

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Rishi Sunak said of the doctors’ pay award: “Today’s offer is final. We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision.”

Overlooking Sunak’s clumsy misuse of “amount”, I was puzzled by the PM’s claim that his government would not negotiate again. I hadn’t been aware that any negotiations had taken place at all.

The junior doctors had asked for a 35 per cent pay increase, which the government said was unaffordable. Stephen Barclay, the health secretary, repeatedly refused to talk with doctors’ representatives. So how did these invisible negotiations travel from 35 per cent to 6 per cent? I’d love to see the train of events leading to 6 per cent, although I strongly suspect they are non-existent. Integrity shall clearly not bother this government still.

Beryl Wall

London

Please, let’s hear it for Huw Edwards and all he has done for the BBC and for us. Let the first person who has never done anything wrong in their life raise an eyebrow. And in this case, we don’t even know whether eyebrows should be raised!

Sue Oldrey

Address supplied

Is the lack of Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages such a problem? All his messages will be duplicated and readable on the recipients’ chat threads as well as his own. As reported by The Independent in April, Conservative ministers and civil servants, with whom Johnson will have messaged extensively, have all been required to hand over their WhatsApp conversations to the Covid inquiry.

The only gaps will be of Johnson’s interactions with people outside this group – but even here, Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chair, presumably has the power to demand that anyone who has received a message from the ex-PM submit their WhatsApp cache for scrutiny.

Pete Williams

Herts

I read with interest your story about the approval of the A303 improvements, including the Stonehenge tunnel.

Motorists who have suffered appalling delays on that section of the A303 will welcome this improvement which will remove a major bottleneck. Others will no doubt be horrified.

I did see an objection in previous coverage of this proposal which rather amused me – the “archaeologist” who protested that the road lighting would destroy the Solstice sunrise. I would have thought that his profession would realise that tunnels are underground, and thus so will be the lighting on the stretch passing the monument.

As for the rest of the road, I would hope that modern, well-designed “dark-skies friendly” lighting would be designed into the scheme. Obviously, great care will have to be taken to ensure this monument is unsullied, the upside of course is that the existing road is already a considerable nuisance, with traffic noise and visual intrusion which will disappear when the road goes underground.

Time will tell – this is not the first construction controversy to affect Stonehenge. After all, even the current “Stonehenge” is not as its makers intended, having been rebuilt several times in the last centuries.

Ian McNicholas

Ebbw Vale