This government cannot relate to the average voter

As a taxpayer and lifelong public sector worker, I find the government's refusal to pay fair wages to nurses, social carers and teachers intolerable – particularly given the squandering of tax injected into exclusionary facilities such as private schools.

All the while our nurses, therapists and teachers are attending food banks and standing on picket lines. This is a world where our politicians are so far removed from the day-to-day struggles of the average person (eg clapping for carers then pushing through draconian legislation to stop protests or strikes) that they cannot possibly relate to the public in any meaningful way!

I feel bereaved by the state of our public services in a world where other countries seem to value them more than our own government does.

Lorraine Croft

Address Supplied

Liz Truss’s ignorant and frenzied return this week has been nothing short of a farcical parade of the Tory party’s right wing.

Even after she took hundreds of billions off the stock market whilst leading the shortest premiership in the history of the UK, she still thinks she can regain the trust of the public just by marching around waving signs about trickle-down nonsense.

All she’s doing is making the Rees-Moggs of the party happy, while showing how truly idiotic the modern Tory party’s policies are. When will she learn some dignity?

James Davies

Worcestershire

I read the letter from the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition Edinburgh with interest and agreement. I have just had a conversation today with someone who attested that children and young people just get what they want and have no reason to complain. As I am wont to do, I stuck up for the younger generation.

While they have tech gizmos in abundance, there is isolationism, peer pressure and the state of this country and the world in general to contend with. Added to that are their parents’ concerns about the cost of living crisis, which trickles down to children with deleterious effects. Life is not a walk in the park for many of them.

So yes, in this children’s mental health week, the spotlight should be on the lack of resources to tackle this important issue. Our children have had a parlous few years with lockdown and later the ensuing financial storm. Is it any wonder their mental health is affected?

Older people often say things like “we didn’t have all these concerns when we were young” but then life was far more simple without the complexities and divisiveness of instant connectivity

Educational settings are aware of these problems and often do their upmost to alleviate them where they can, but this growing issue should feature very prominently on the government’s list of priorities, to ensure that each and every young person gets the help they both need and deserve.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth

Perhaps we were all wrong about Liz Truss. After all, would it even matter if the London stock exchange became a very large Costa, and sterling became an alternative to natural gas to heat your home?

It’s very tempting to believe her trickle-down economics, but to be honest it sounds a bit like those language courses that claim “learn Mandarin Chinese in a week”.

Robert Aylott

Scunthorpe

Come election time we get to vote for candidates representing political parties. What we don't get to do is vote for party leaders.

So it's a bit rich for Rishi Sunak and his predecessors to distance themselves from the actions of previous Tory PMs, whose actions they supported in the main.

We have arrived at our current place in the world after 12 years of Tory government, and five Tory prime ministers. We will only get change by changing the party in power – not just the PM.

Geoff Forward

Stirling