Letters: Voters should think hard before handing Labour an unearned majority

SIR – If Sir Keir Starmer does not have the courage to clearly set out his intentions for government, he does not deserve a single vote – never mind a “super-majority”.

Such an approach demonstrates contempt for the electorate.

Chris Davies
Woking, Surrey

SIR – If the electorate votes as predicted, we can expect five years of chaos and misery.

Granted, the Conservative Party has made a hash of things, but a Labour victory will send us straight back to the 1970s.

In the words of Ronald Reagan: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Robert Abel
Tenterden, Kent

SIR – This Government has not covered itself in glory, but it has steered the country through two major crises, and voters should look before they leap. Only two parties have a realistic chance of forming the next government. The others are a distraction.

Labour has no coherent policies. Besides decrying “14 years of Tory chaos”, it has nothing to say.

Weak though Rishi Sunak has been, he offers some hope for the future, and things are beginning to move in the right direction. Better the devil you know.

Jeremy Parr
Suckley, Worcestershire

SIR – It is evident that Sir Keir Starmer, once in power, will be too weak and indecisive to resist the hard-Left elements in his party. They will destroy the British economy, just as they have done before.

The problem is that too few people today can remember what those times were like.

Peter Ogilvy
Froxfield, Hampshire

SIR – Robert Jenrick’s article (Comment, June 29) warns that Sir Keir “will transform Britain into a high-migration, low-growth, bureaucrat-led nation”.

Perhaps he has not noticed that he and his fellow Conservative MPs have already achieved this.

Ian Bocking
Fareham, Hampshire

SIR – Could someone from the upper echelons of the Conservative Party please explain to me how the pitiful state of this country’s infrastructure and public services can be remedied by cutting taxes?

Steve Hodgson
Bolton, Lancashire

SIR – In our close last week, a schoolboy delivered leaflets for three different parties running in the North Cotswolds constituency – Labour, Green and Independent.

Whatever happened to canvassing?

Dave Alsop
Churchdown, Gloucestershire

Jill Biden’s error

SIR – I wonder what is behind Jill Biden’s desire to see her husband stand again in the US presidential election (“Jill Biden takes flak for urging president on”, report, June 30). She must know full well that he is not up to the job.

It’s appalling advice for her to give, and demonstrates little regard for her country.

Muriel Allen
Coventry, Warwickshire

SIR – Joe Biden’s incapacity was obvious during the 2020 presidential campaign, when his aides regularly “called a lid” on his appearances early in the day to conserve his limited energy.

The journalists who failed to report on this – whether from a misplaced sense of decency or a determination to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election – did us a disservice.

David J Critchley
Buckingham

SIR – Sandy Gemmill (Letters, June 30) believes Joe Biden should resign so that his replacement can “save us all from a second term in office for Mr Trump”.

I do not need to be saved from Mr Trump; indeed, I would welcome his re-election. Better to have a friend of Britain in the White House than people who despise us.

Richard Scott
Kirkbride, Cumbria

Home-school success

SIR – Ian Duckworth (Letters, June 29) suggests that home-schooled children may miss out on a social and emotional education.

My granddaughter was home-schooled for several years. In addition to her studies at home, she attended farm school and forest school. She joined groups for art and crafts, sport and science. She was taught piano by an A-level music student.

Home-schooling was a co-operative undertaking organised by parents who employed group tutors for any area of learning not covered by the existing framework.

My granddaughter and her friends grew up sociable, friendly and confident.

Christine Russell
Dorchester

SIR – The socialisation referred to by Ian Duckworth is only ever viewed as a good thing.

However, I have never in my life heard the parents of a teenager say: “I’m so pleased with the way that John has started speaking, now that he’s started secondary school”. Or: “Mary has picked up some wonderful habits from her school friends.”

In these contexts, socialisation is usually referred to as “peer pressure” and regarded in something of a negative light.

Simon Webb
Loughton, Essex

Warmed by Coldplay

SIR – At 82 years old I am frequently depressed about the state of our country.

However, the sheer joy and exuberance of Coldplay’s performance at Glastonbury on Saturday evening (Arts, June 30), and the technical excellence of this globally televised event, left me with a feeling of hope. There are positives out there, if we can only summon the will to embrace them.

Music can have an impact on people’s happiness and wellbeing that transcends the bleak outlook we continue to face.

Mike Drury
Knutsford, Cheshire

Farage and the BBC

SIR – At the start of the special episode of Question Time involving Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and the Green Party’s Adrian Ramsay (report, June 30), we were informed by the moderator, Fiona Bruce, that supporters of the Greens and Reform would be well-represented in the audience.

During the time allocated to each leader, Mr Ramsay enjoyed applause as he made his pitch. However, apart from in the opening and closing sections of the programme, Mr Farage was received in silence. I’m not sure where those Reform supporters were.

Robbie Browse
Burton Bradstock, Dorset

SIR – Nigel Farage’s suggestion that the Channel 4 programme in which a Reform volunteer used a racial slur to describe Rishi Sunak was a “set-up” (report, June 29) sounds very similar to Donald Trump’s reaction to being found guilty by a New York court.

I was already concerned by Mr Farage’s claim that Mr Sunak “doesn’t care about our culture” during the row over D-Day.

Peter Lewis
Rayleigh, Essex

Churchill and PoWs

SIR – After the Second World War, Winston Churchill employed several German prisoners of war (Letters, June 29) as gardeners on his Chartwell estate. One of them, Albert, met and married a local girl, and continued working in the area as a gardener when his employment at Chartwell ceased.

My wife once met him. Albert told her of his time working for Churchill, including an occasion when other staff complained about having to work with “the enemy”. This was before the Cold War was in full swing. 
Churchill reprimanded them, saying they should be more worried about the enemy of the future: the Russians.

Roger Brine
Sevenoaks, Kent

SIR – Margaret Vince (Letters, June 29) asks if British PoWs worked on German farms during the Second World War. The answer is yes.

My wife’s late uncle, Raymond Wallwork, was captured at the fall of Crete while serving with the Royal Marines. He worked on an Austrian farm, and late in life he told some tales. One was about the difficulty of ploughing with a team of only a horse and an ox. He was very careful not to speak German even though he could. At least he was better fed than many.

Terry McDonald
Derby

Local banks complicit in the cashless drive

SIR – Geoff Pringle’s letter (“Cash-poor banks”, June 29) struck a chord. When I requested £1 coins for a charity-event float at my local bank, the cashier told me: “We’re trying to get away from using cash altogether.”

Nick Perry
Lincoln

SIR – Reading of Mr Pringle’s difficulty in obtaining £1 coins from his local branch, I found myself wondering, once again, why such banks exist. The last time I visited mine, in East Grinstead, was more than 50 years ago. And that one is now due to close.

Hugh Sawyer
Basingstoke, Hampshire

SIR – Geoff Pringle should have visited the Post Office for his £1 coins. Our church banks more than £200 in these coins from collections every week.

Peter J Gallivan
Wakefield, West Yorkshire

The sound of a solitary summer visitor

SIR – Sadly, like Ann Woodings (Letters, June 29), I have noticed an absence of butterflies this summer.

There is, however, a solitary bumble bee that visits our garden daily. I hear when it buzzes in.

Kate Pycock
Ipswich, Suffolk

SIR – There is no dearth of bees (Letters, June 27) where we live.

Earlier this year we noticed a stain on our ceiling beneath a flat roof extension. We called in a roofer; he said the covering was sound. So we called in a plumber.

He advised that there were no pipes in the vicinity. A friend then suggested we taste the liquid seeping through. It was honey. The bees are in our disused chimney.

Peter Fineman
Barrow Street, Wiltshire

SIR – Regarding the lack of swallows and house martins (Letters, June 27), I have just been on a cruise in the Aegean, which also stopped in Corfu and Montenegro.

These birds are happily residing in the ports I visited; midges were present for food, and the bees were a-buzzing.

Alas, here in Kent, the swifts have not returned for two years, and hardly a bee or butterfly has visited.

John Pell
Herne, Kent

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