A clique of dinosaurs is holding back the Conservative Party

An erudite, accurate and compelling comparison between our current woes and the tribulations of the 1970s, by Salma Shah.

However, the colossal problem facing the Conservative Party and, by definition, this country, is the domination of said party by a group of empire nostalgists, Europhobes and English nationalists who are more intent on taking us backwards – maybe the 1930s for starters – than leading us into a glorious future.

Until this clique are comprehensively removed, the parliamentary party will be more like Dad’s Army than Maggie’s army, no matter who is at the helm.

Robert Boston

Kingshill

Brexit is working, says David Frost. What planet is he on?

As I grind my axe, I struggle to identify any tangible benefit that Brexit has reaped for this country to date. Meanwhile, as you note, concerns continue about the potential breach of the Northern Ireland protocol, increased red tape for UK exporters, Channel power snarl-ups and passport queues.

The government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility and any number of economic bodies and commentators would beg to differ with Frost. Unlike him, I do have cause for regret about the decision this county has made.

Nick Eastwell

London

Education is the cornerstone of a country’s success, providing future work and leisure opportunities for its people. Without sufficient highly-trained education practitioners, children will be denied opportunities to improve their lives.

It is the responsibility of the employer, in this case the government, to provide an employee, the teacher, a working environment conducive to remaining in post. Teachers and support staff, as with many other professions, need to feel valued by those they teach and who employ them.

Unfortunately, Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, is trying to shame teachers into taking a further pay cut. This is doubly hurtful, as teachers stayed on the frontline when Covid-19 was rampant in our community.

I have personal experience – 25 years – of just how much effort teachers spend preparing students for exams and the confidence to learn throughout their lives. To many, teaching is still a vocation but now poorly paid and with diminishing assistance from the government.

Many teachers leave the profession in search of better pay and conditions, due to the workload. I can assure Mr Zahawi that being a good teacher is all consuming, the hours are long, and too many sacrifices have to be made in order to maintain the high standards they have achieved.

As with other Tory government ministers, Zahawi doesn’t seem to have a constructive idea of how to provide a better environment and work/life balance for the teaching fraternity. The Tory party appears to need to pick fights with various groups of people and organisations in Britain to try to distract from the failings of the government.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

Prince Charles is quite right, the government’s programme to send refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda is indeed appalling.

Maybe we should have seen it coming though; it is a natural progression of the “hostile environment” adopted by the Home Office. Refugees and asylum seekers have, in the Home Office’s view, an impression that the UK is a safe and welcoming place, somewhere they can rebuild their shattered lives.

In order to disabuse them of this notion, our government’s intention seems to be to escalate the hostile environment so that the UK is no longer seen as a safe place, where refugees and asylum seekers will be treated kindly and fairly.

The Rwanda policy appears to be based on the principle that the end justifies the means. I believe it is deliberately unfair and an abuse of human rights. Moreover, its success will be measured not in the number of people deported but in the number who decide not to come to the UK in the first place. How that number will be calculated by the Home Office is anyone’s guess.

David Wallis

Cirencester