We need a Labour government to tackle small boats

So, exactly four years after Boris Johnson won an election based on porky pies rather than an oven-ready Brexit deal, along comes Rishi Sunak to try and lead us all up the garden path again with his Rwanda scheme.

Does it never occur to the bitterly divided and civil war-ridden Conservative Party that people can see through their ideological nonsense nowadays more than ever before?

Four years on and millions of pounds wasted and they still never learn.

This is why we need a Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to properly crack down on criminal smugglers, to clear the backlog, to end hotel use and to tackle this humanitarian crisis at its source.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Sean O’Grady is right in saying that Labour should be stating that there is not going to be much money available to them if they are elected to form the next government. The public needs to be made aware that we have been put in this position by a government that has wasted our resources and stifled our capacity to enhance productivity.

It is in Labour’s interest to do the sums and spell out clearly just how much has been wasted by the Tory party over the last 13 years.

The cost of the Cameron/Osborne austerity era was the first chapter in a catalogue of short-sighted moves that have blighted the nation’s future. Add to it the crushing cost of Brexit, including the loss of valuable migrant workers, and the cost of a Tory government begins to grow exponentially.

But that was just the start. Wasteful expenditure during the pandemic led to funding Nightingale hospitals that were never used, purchasing PPE that was unfit for purpose, and the fast-tracking of contracts to those ill-equipped to provide effective products and services.

Then the money spent on HS2, a service that now (with key elements cut) will have little impact on the nation’s productivity. Then, each day, we read of the senseless and shameful expenditure on the Rwanda deterrent project that has become a Tory obsession with no moral or practical purpose behind it.

Once these figures are added together – and emblazoned on the side of Labour’s campaign bus – the nation will see once and for all the cost of a Conservative government that should not be trusted to have responsibility for the nation’s finances ever again.

Graham Powell

Cirencester

Some in the Conservative Party think that removing potential refugees to Rwanda is immoral and others that it is not immoral enough. Some think the issue is too divisive and others that it’s not divisive enough.

Some believe it’s illegal and others think that it’s legally sound. Some think removing people is important, and for most of the country that it’s not important enough for it to be the only thing dominating the domestic news.

Dr Ian Robertson

Milton Keynes

While chancellor Jeremy Hunt can’t afford to deliver social care, 10 years after declaring as health secretary that elderly neglect was a “national disgrace”, he can reduce their plight, the NHS backlog and the cost of social care, by abolishing inheritance tax for heirs who commit to caring for their elderly parents for the rest of their lives.

Above all, by incentivising family ties the chancellor can help create a more caring and united society.

Trevor Lyttleton

London

So another US citizen in our justice system is able to leave the UK without anyone noticing.

This shows two things: firstly, how supine our authorities are towards the US especially if there is a suggestion that the suspect works for the US government – we wouldn’t want to risk any offence, would we?

And secondly, that the Home Office has absolutely no control over our borders. We always hear about controlling arrivals, but there have been no checks on departures for as long as I can remember.

Why was Issac Calderon not forced to surrender his passport? He was already deemed a flight risk.

At airports, the only ID check carried out is by airlines, simply to match the passenger to travel documents when boarding; border force is nowhere to be seen.

It’s time for the myth of border control to be put to rest.

Charles Wood

Birmingham

So we now learn one in four Scottish councils fear bankruptcy. All councils had planned to raise council tax in an attempt to stave off financial catastrophe – until Humza Yousaf suddenly decided, and apparently unilaterally, to freeze council tax.

He promises the freeze will be fully funded by the Scottish central government, yet finance secretary Shona Robison faces a £1bn black hole after the SNP has spent years handing out populist universal benefits rather than targeting according to need.

Of course, the SNP won’t admit responsibility, they never do – they’ll blame Westminster, despite the UK government having just provided an additional £525m to Scottish coffers.

Martin Redfern

Roxburghshire