Times letters: Challenges Rishi Sunak faces in convincing voters

Sir, William Hague is correct that in the course of the election campaign there should be debate about the longer-term future of this country (“All Sunak can do now is prove he has a plan”, May 7). I would like to think that politicians might level with the electorate and explain that the next few years are going to be tough as we face up to an extraordinary number of challenges: global warming, mass immigration, AI, future pandemics, the strategic threat from Russia and China and how to deal with the consequences of Brexit, to name but a few. They should explain how we can get through these problems if we are resourceful and pull together. However, I have little hope that this will happen because for a party to say this would make it unelectable. I expect the winner will be whoever promises to reduce taxes while putting more money into the NHS.
Gordon Elliot
Burford, Oxon

Sir, William Hague makes a far better case for sticking with his party than anything the prime minister has done so far. Even if the PM does come up with a convincing plan to the electorate, it is almost impossible to sustain because he is torn between his rightwing MPs’ demands for a change of course and those in the One Nation group who urge a steadier path. You cannot win an election, or even get to a hung parliament, with his MPs in such a volatile mood.
Charles Townley
Hove

Sir, William Hague says that Rishi Sunak’s problem is “the accumulation of 14 years in office and five different prime ministers”. Most people I know think that 99 per cent of his problem is two prime ministers, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, who will not be forgotten by the time of the general election, regardless of any plan.
Gary Rawlinson
Burbage, Wilts

Sir, Rishi Sunak seems to speak of a hung parliament as something to be feared (news, May 6; letters, May 7). Many voters, however, might welcome one, with the Liberal Democrats perhaps forcing a coalition government to a more moderate and pro-EU stance, to the benefit of our economy. Indeed, had tactical voting given us a hung parliament in 2019, when a mere 43.6 per cent of the vote gave the Tories a majority enabling them to do “whatever we liked”, as Johnson put it, we might well have had a far less extreme Brexit deal, and could probably also have handled the pandemic better (and almost certainly less corruptly).
Adrian Cosker
Hitchin, Herts

Sir, For my part I pray for a hung parliament. Such an outcome might permit the non-ideological politicians of all parties to come together to agree on, and implement, the unpalatable but necessary policies that are essential for the long-term health of the economic and social fabric of the UK. Individual parties seem too frightened to espouse these policies unilaterally.
Peter Bloxham
London WC2

Sir, No single party has won more than 50 per cent of the vote since the first half of the 20th century, and we have suffered under large parliamentary majorities with a minority of the population supporting them. It is time for electoral reform.
David Simpson
Darby Green, Hants

Student protests

Sir, Although protests in London against the Vietnam war were a regular event they were not the only trigger for the university sit-ins (“Angry protests didn’t work in ’68 and don’t now,” Libby Purves, May 6). The initial event at Warwick University was a protest about student files — it was felt that the university compiling files on its students’ activities was an infringement of personal liberty (and might hamper students’ job prospects). The largest of the sit-ins, at Manchester University, which I found myself proposing, was on the issue of freedom of speech. When the university misguidedly caused injunctions to be imposed on a number of members of the Socialist Society, a meeting against student files was turned into a meeting on freedom of speech, and the university premises were occupied. Self-interest was a more powerful cause than distant events.
David Staveley
Walgrave, Northants

Sir, Along with many others I was involved in fist fights with the police in Grosvenor Square in 1968. We didn’t win on that battleground but we did win the battle for hearts and minds. The wily Harold Wilson was able to resist the likes of Michael Stewart, the foreign secretary, and keep our brave boys from having to fight the Viet Cong. Demonstrations, noisy and vulgar as they have to be to get media coverage, do not work at the level of practical politics but at the level of changing the weather, thus redirecting our weathervane politicians.
Nik Wood
London E9

Dangerous cyclists

Sir, Pace Melanie Phillips (“Protect pedestrians from these deadly cyclists”, comment, May 7), I have cycled regularly for 60 years and will not seek to defend the minority of thoughtless and dangerous cyclists. I use my bell, and, if in doubt that I have been heard, also call out. What worries me is thoughtless pedestrians and in particular those who cross a road without looking. This happened to me three times in one street the other morning, and such behaviour will become even more dangerous with the increase in electric cars. I am also concerned that so many pedestrians are using earphones and therefore cannot hear any warning from a cyclist.
John Newman
Chichester

Sir, I am profoundly grateful to both Melanie Phillips and Robert Crampton (“Cycling used to be cool. Now too many bike riders are jerks”, Times2, May 7) for their defence of pedestrians. I have spent years fuming and glaring at cyclists on pavements to no avail, suffering several near misses, until recently I found myself, between a high wall and a bus stop facing an oncoming pavement invader. Having with me a laden shopping trolley, I decided to make a stand: I blocked the pathway and requested the cyclist to dismount. She was utterly furious, but short of knocking me out of the way had no choice but to go into the road to go around me, still proclaiming that I was the problem. Sadly, since many cyclists apparently cannot or will not read the Highway Code, they are unlikely to read these excellent articles.
Eleanor Cole
Taunton, Somerset

‘Bloated’ syllabus

Sir, A recent report (“Call to slim down schools’ ‘bloated’ GCSE curriculum”, May 7), raises a number of interesting questions. How many subjects should pupils study between the ages of 14 and 16? Ten is perfectly manageable for pupils of average ability. Fewer than that makes it much harder to find a place for arts and humanities subjects. What if we wanted to add additional subjects, such as financial education or climate change? Then mainstream, traditional subjects such as history and geography would have to be cut. How many exam papers should be sat for each subject? The more papers that are sat, the fairer the exam because more of the syllabus can be tested. Reducing the number and length of exam papers might seem a nice thing to do to reduce stress but it would make results much less reliable. Most students sit 20 pretty short papers, which is manageable.

Is the content of some GCSEs too great? Possibly, but we reformed the content ten years ago after evidence that we taught our teenagers less than many other competitor countries.
Barnaby Lenon
Dean of education, University of Buckingham

Morality in politics

Sir, Although faith is not a prerequisite for holding public office, nor should it be a barrier (“Only snobs hold Kate Forbes’s faith against her”, Sarah Ditum, May 4). In the UK we have neither a theocracy nor a secular fundamentalism where religion is confined to the margins. That some of our politicians are influenced by their faith should be welcomed. By holding a belief system in a deity they are accountable to something beyond themselves, an antidote to the temptations of narcissism in office. Furthermore, politicians with a religion subscribe to a moral code, at a time when our leaders veer towards managerialism without an anchor. Finally, such politicians are likely to appreciate the power of faith and other communities to bring about social change. If we discount evangelical politicians such as Kate Forbes as our political leaders on account of their religion, we are not as tolerant as we like to think we are.
Zaki Cooper
London NW4

Our zoos deserve public subsidy

Sir, It was heartening to read about the vital role zoos such as Chester play in educating the public and helping countries to meet international biodiversity targets (“Why captive audiences can be good for the planet”, May 7). It is, therefore, a shame that British zoos are facing increasing financial pressures. This is hardly surprising: we are possibly the only developed country not to subsidise its major zoos, with our government often subjecting them to crippling tax rates and mountains of Brexit-induced red tape instead.

When tens of millions of taxpayer pounds are lavished on the arguably less deserving Football Association each year, surely our elected officials can stump up some funds to stop zoos becoming as endangered as the species they are working so hard to save?
Seyan Dattani
Fellow, Zoological Society of London; Northwood, Middx

Hymns of praise

Sir, Hands off “the rich man in his castle” (letters, May 4, 6 & 7)! Together with the national anthem’s “confound their politics/frustrate their knavish tricks” (from a verse generally omitted, sadly) this line from All Things Bright and Beautiful affords a rare moment of amusement in congregational singing.
Richard Lawrence
Former chief executive, Royal School of Church Music; London SW1

Sir, My family of boys could be relied upon to chuckle at the words of what they called the bicycling hymn — otherwise known as And Can It Be, That I Should Gain — with the line “my chains fell off”, while I was left pondering the wisdom or otherwise of starting a hymn with a conjunction.
Tricia Shuler
Upton, Cheshire

Bartered rations

Sir, Some of the army ration packs (letters, May 7) issued when we were on exercises in West Germany in 1960-61 contained rather inferior chocolate bars, which nobody much liked. We would go from house to house in the local village bartering the chocolate for fresh eggs. We were usually successful, the accepted exchange rate being two eggs for one chocolate bar, and enjoyed much-improved breakfasts.
Barry Hill
Ham, Surrey

Consort quandary

Sir, Further to Kate Mansey’s article (May 4; letters, May 6 & 7) on consorts, King Philip II of Spain was King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. His statue can be found in the Prado in Madrid. I think we have forgotten him here.
Rosemary Aikman Bull
Manchester

Interval training

Sir, Further to the letters (May 6 & 7) on banning filming during concerts, at the theatre recently I found the flashing light emitted by my neighbour’s wrist health monitor very distracting. She didn’t appear to notice.
Pam Paterson
Pinner, Middx