What hold does Big Oil have over our government?

The government’s failure to increase our offshore windfarms last month seemed a matter of incompetence. Now that the government is supporting the Rosebank oilfield with a £4 billion tax break, it seems more like a conspiracy.

The future of our children depends on reducing our use of fossil fuels. But that is where the government puts its money, even though renewables will clearly be a more rational investment. What hold has Big Oil over our government?

John Bond

Oxford

I really didn’t think the home secretary Suella Braverman could get any “nastier” but her speech to the right-wing think tank in the US has proved me wrong.

After her attempts to get positive headlines in the media with her Rwanda plan and her barge scheme both went disastrously wrong, Braverman is now trying to start a leadership campaign denigrating almost anyone with a valid reason to claim asylum and even went as far as to suggest that the UNHCR should water down the 1951 refugee convention.

David Felton

Wistaston

So, a judge in New York has held Donald Trump and his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric liable for fraud by lying about the value of their properties for years. Assessing Trump’s plea of innocence, the judge said, “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

There is now a very real possibility that Trump will lose most of his financial empire, although we can expect appeals to every appellate court in New York, to the US Supreme Court, and probably to the Interplanetary Tribunal of Galactic Justice.

This is the same man that half the country wants to install in the presidency to run the United States into the ground. That’s not the “fantasy world.” That’s the real world.

And Trump himself is still confident they will propel him into the Oval Office next year to add to the world’s crises.

Abraham Lincoln, a Republican worthy of the name, was right when he said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time.” Those are pretty good odds.

Mike Barrett

Virginia

The downside of leaving the EU is now clear to nearly everyone except the diehard zealots. Now we hear Downing Street reportedly supporting Suella Braverman, in threatening to leave the ECHR.

On top of this many on the far right are calling for us to leave the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation too. Having closed the door on our European friends, we are now on a route to close the door on the civilised world. These organisations improve a lot for ordinary people across the globe.

Unless sanity returns, we shall have scarcely more friends than North Korea and nearly as little influence.

Robert Boston

Kent

The recent report that describes the terminal decline of many species in the UK comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched the catastrophic diminution of the nation’s flora and fauna over the last 50 years. There are 40 million fewer birds in the UK landscape than in the 1960s; this is not just a matter of regret but an indicator of future perils that will beset all forms of life, including the human species if concerted action isn’t taken.

Lack of care and adequate legislation has led to the ripping out of hedgerows and poisoning our earth, air, and water on which all forms of life depend. Poor husbandry has been made worse, of course, by climate change. Faced with this appalling ecocide, a government committed to deregulation and delaying action on climate change massages the truth and tells us that legislation is in place to protect the natural world.

The concerted efforts by many environmental groups to engage young people with the natural world and mobilise them to take action in response to the terminal decline of many species is the only hope we have while those in government continue to ignore the evidence in their pursuit of power without responsibility – for all our children’s future.

Graham Powell

Cirencester