The government is more invested in the problem than the solution

Reading The Independent’s recent editorial I was thrilled to hear that finally right and proper justice has been awarded to this brave and stalwart Afghan pilot, who fought with UK forces and was repaid with a callous threat of deportation to Rwanda.

At last sense, compassion and ethics have triumphed. This solution should have been glaringly obvious in the first place, regardless of his route to safety. Very distinguished military personnel already appreciated that this was a travesty of justice and they should have been listened to along with this paper and its committed stance.

The Home Office has tied itself up in intractable knots and now needs to appreciate those desperate asylum seekers who embark on dangerous boat crossings would not do so if they had any other choice. It appears more often than not, they are more invested in the problem than any proactive solutions. But this is a good day for him and The Independent, who resolutely fought his case and have been instrumental in finally achieving the right and moral outcome.

Judith A Daniels Norfolk

It is not often that I am moved to tears of happiness when I open The Independent each morning but this morning when I read the wonderful news about the Afghan pilot who risked so much for this country being granted asylum I did shed a tear or two.

Bravo The Independent!

Maggie Dyer London

Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has just declared the Notting Hill Carnival to be “dangerous” and has gone on to argue that “there is an issue with crime in the black community in London”.

Hall – a long-time critic of the carnival – is, of course, a member of the Conservative Party.

This time last year the Tory prime minister was still Boris Johnson, a man who had to resign as PM because he “deliberately misled” the Commons over the lockdown parties held at 10 Downing Street over the coronavirus crisis. Johnson had to pay a fine in April 2022 for partying in Downing Street during lockdown, thereby becoming the first serving prime minister of the UK to be sanctioned for breaking the law.

Rishi Sunak was Johnson’s chancellor when he too received a lockdown fine in April 2022 for attending an illegal party in Downing Street in June 2020. He is now the current Tory PM.

In January 2023 Rishi Sunak sacked Nadhim Zahawi as Conservative party chair after he was found to have breached the ministerial code by failing to declare the HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.

The current Tory home secretary Suella Braverman had to resign as home secretary on 19 October 2022 for “multiple breaches of the ministerial code” when it was revealed that she used her personal email to share official documents with a parliamentary colleague.

Then in May 2023, it was revealed that Braverman had broken the ministerial code by asking civil servants for special treatment following a speeding conviction.

Before this in February 2021, a court ruled that the then-health minister Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not reveal details of contracts it had signed during the pandemic. One of those contracts went to PPE Medpro who were given £122m by the government in 2020 to provide personal protective equipment after being recommended by Tory peer Baroness Mone. In 2022 it was revealed that Mone and her husband received tens of millions from PPE Medpro’s profits.

In May 2022 an as-yet-unnamed male Tory MP in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault offences between 2002 and 2009.

How dare Susan Hall associate London’s Black community with crime?

It’s the Conservative party that’s putrid with criminality.

Sasha Simic London

Alastair Duncan is quite right to hope for coalition government. Our current system amounts to periodic selection of oligarchies.

Once elected, an idiot government can wreak havoc, as we have seen in recent times.

The last time a UK government had a majority of the popular vote was 1935. Governments generally receive around 40-45 per cent of the ballot, so most people are unhappy with the result.

Your campaign for the Afghani airman succeeded. How about a campaign for electoral reform?

Mark Ogilvie Horncastle

John Rentoul speculates on who might be for the chop in the next cabinet reshuffle.

My prediction is that nobody will be sacked from their current post because for that to happen Sunak would actually have to make a decision, something he has avoided since becoming PM. Witness his absence from the Boris Johnson lying vote, his failure to discipline Lee Anderson over his crude language, and his general lack of leadership.

Clearly, Johnson has faults that made him unsuitable as PM. Perhaps an inability to be decisive is a trait that should disqualify Sunak.

Alan Pack Kent