It’s grossly unfair that Russian tennis players aren’t allowed to compete at Wimbledon

When British soldiers were torturing prisoners in Northern Ireland (according to Amnesty International) and, with the help of the local police, were killing innocent people, no one suggested that British tennis players shouldn’t be allowed to play at tournaments around the world. It seems grossly unfair that Russian and Belarusian tennis players are not allowed to take part at Wimbledon this year.

Brute force has not solved the political problems in Northern Ireland. The situation there requires diplomacy and tact.

Patricia Gerlich

I saw something recently in Greenwich on a recent visit from rural Cheshire. My wife and I were walking along a main road and there were four large police vehicles parked haphazardly and I remarked to my wife that something really serious must be happening, such as an armed robbery. We then spotted several police officers surrounding a black child and aggressively questioning him. I was shocked, but didn’t have the nerve to take a photograph or video of the situation that the contributor of your published picture had.

I can only assume that some Met officers derive pleasure from acting in an unnecessarily aggressive way to probably innocent young black kids. Anyone who suggests that the Met is not a deeply racist organisation has clearly not witnessed the sort of incident that we have.

David Felton

Wistaston

Prince Charles should have used his high profile to raise concerns about human rights transgressions of thousands of labourers upon whom Qatar’s economy and the 2022 World Cup tournament depend. Each one of them has the right to be treated with justice, fairness and transparency. Regrettably, many employees still endure exploitation, mistreatment, sexual abuse of males and females, harassment, withholding of their salaries and unfair dismissal by unscrupulous employers. These abuses must end.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

After reading yesterday’s article by Patrick Minford (Brexit had to happen – this is why), I found myself despairing of this attitude. Namely: the nationalistic selfishness that still exists.

This attitude goes to the very heart of it all. Still no inclusion of thoughts on whether this view of nation is the sensible way to proceed in the world, where we all have to live and get along. Surely this leads to the question of whether it is sensible, in this day and age, to insist on our own interests above everything else?

When a club is joined, there is strength in unity and an importance of being together. I dreamt that the unity of Europe would be a start to try to resolve nations’ problems together. Not the ultimate solutions, but surely unity in some way can provide the foundation where ideas can grow. If self-government is every nation’s aim, then there is no hope for humanity to crawl out of this antagonistic world.

Jan Hitchcock MBACP (Accred)

Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

I wonder if economist Patrick Minford was alive for the 1975 EU referendum? He asserts we were told the UK “was only joining a customs union”. This was blatantly untrue. Hansard, newspapers of the time and TV recordings all show that ever-closer union was an expected long-term aim.

Churchill said earlier that pooling of European sovereignty would make a greater whole. European friends made in the early 1960s all seemed to do better over the years before 1975. The EU appeared to be more centralist than the UK – perhaps more like Scotland – and appeared to be interested in the wellbeing of all, rather than party donors.

It seemed to me that joining the EU was akin to leaving a dodgy, war-damaged rowing boat for a modern ocean-going vessel sailing the economic sea. Far less likely to catch a cold when another major power sneezes! Those against appear to be more interested in fighting over the rowing boat tiller, than looking after the wellbeing of the passengers and sharing the bridge of the liner with other members. I suppose cooperation reduces their sense of power...

Ivan Hall

Lapford

Ms Sturgeon tells us that “independence” is essential to resolving the cost of living crisis. No surprise there. We are all by now used to her saying, “The answer is independence. Now, what was the question?” Ms Sturgeon demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of past and current economic circumstances. The problems, she says are due to “Tory austerity” and Brexit. Where has she been these last few years? Has amnesia set it? I distinctly remember her invading our television screens day after day to give gloom and doom reports about, er, now what was it? Oh, yes, Covid. A pandemic that affected pretty much all the countries of the world, leaving massive economic damage in its wake.

We in the UK were fortunate in having the means to provide furloughing and business support, as well as the commissioning, payment and distribution of a series of life-saving vaccines. We had the means because HM Government had the ability and creditworthiness to borrow substantially. A separate Scotland would have sunk in the attempt to do these things.

Now we have Russian aggression in Europe and a worldwide energy crisis. Yes, it is worldwide, not the invention of “Tories” or “Westminster”. Our inflation rate may be slightly higher than some others, but in both the USA (8.6 per cent) and the EU (8.3 per cent) the rate is not far behind. The cost of living crisis is a world problem, not one to be solved by Scexit.

Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh

Boris Johnson warns against any attempts by his European “friends” to push Volodymyr Zelensky into a “bad” peace deal with Russia, while posturing about strong British backing for Kyiv. What he neglects is to explain is what a “good” peace deal would look like. Because, eventually, there will have to be a peace deal, or at least a ceasefire and an acceptance of the status quo. See North Korea. If we assume that Ukraine will push Russia back to its own borders, which at this point seems to be a very unlikely possibility, what then?

Pro-Russian inhabitants of Donetsk and Luhansk have been fighting a civil war against the Ukrainian government since 2014 and will continue to do so, regardless of what “good” peace deal may eventually be achieved. Forget Crimea, Russia will never give this up again, they did so once. Ukrainians are also discovering Russian sympathisers among them who pass information on to Russia.

The war in Ukraine is not a European war. It is a legacy war between Russia and Ukraine, whether we like it or not and it is up to those two parties to find an acceptable outcome to their differences. This could already have been negotiated in 2014, avoiding the savage destruction and deaths we witness daily. This is only a European war because Nato, that is America, sees it as such.

In the meantime, western countries are only too happy to throw out the global climate crisis targets and revert back to coal. Ukraine has become a western ego trip and Zelensky is playing the fiddle. In no way is this to condone what Russia does, though it is useful to start with the facts.

Gunter Straub

London