Dear Editors, 

I read Maggie Pagano’s article about a minister resigning because he couldn’t afford his mortgage with a comparative twinkle in my eye. I’m a single mother, and civil servant working part-time earning ÂŁ35,000. My monthly mortgage payment has gone up nearly tenfold – from ÂŁ216 to ÂŁ1966 a month. Can anyone beat that?

I have developed two side hustles to afford it – which make more than upping my hours to full-time because they qualify for tax breaks. They also provide employment to people in the community and enjoyment to those visiting our village. Lower tax = innovation = growth (micro-scale).

Taxes need to be cut in this climate for everyone, even higher earners. Especially as the Bank of England remains blindly intransigent.

Nicola McChlery

The media are misleading the public on immigration

Dear Editors, 

The media (including you in the article, TMO, the tyranny of the machines, and taking back control ) are as guilty as politicians of misleading the public on the illegal immigration/asylum issue. It’s irrelevant in many cases whether an individual has not or should not have been granted asylum or has received a sentence that subsequently requires deportation. Deportation is generally possible only to the country of which the individual is a national and the UK shouldn’t and won’t deport anyone to countries that are deemed unsafe unless the individual consents.

So those individuals who get here illegally from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and so on, to whom we are for good reason or bad not prepared to give asylum or leave to remain, live in a shadow world between charity handouts and criminality (as exploiter or exploited). It’s not satisfactory but what’s the solution that politicians and media should be offering? Unfortunately, once these individuals have got to the UK it’s too late to do anything.

That’s why Rwanda may be the right sort of solution – not because I want Rwanda to take the illegal entrants we reject or that I want the UK to stop granting asylum, but because once there is a realistic prospect of being transferred to Rwanda, and being made to claim asylum from there with no prospect of eventual entry to the UK, those attempting to reach the UK illegally by boat or lorry will give up. Why spend 2,000 euros with a trafficker and risk death when you will be removed from the UK when you get there? Albanians were at one point the largest group of Channel boat people. As soon as they could be deported to Albania, that route ended.  We live in difficult times! 

Paul Hale

Trump might be a loathsome character, but at least he didn’t start any wars

Dear Editors,

I am surprised by Jenny Hjul’s article about Taylor Swift, particularly this paragraph:

“From this side of the pond, we can only stand by, awe-struck, and say “go girl”! Biden needs all the help he can get and if it comes in the form of an American icon who fulfilled the dream and then some, that is a more legitimate and wholesome route to the White House than, say, the Russian meddling in Trump’s 2016 victory”.

Why should we be supporting the notion of re-electing a man who has just been declared to be in severe cognitive decline (as your own Editorial Board writes)?

The idea of entrusting him (or his handlers?) with the nuclear launch codes for another term is surely insanity, especially given his record on Afghanistan withdrawal and Ukraine bloodshed?

And why bring up the “Russian meddling” trope? Note the big disclosure on “Russian interference” very much went the other way. 

Trump might be a loathsome character, but he didn’t start any wars.  As for the “insurrection” – just look at the videos of the state agent provocateurs and think about what really happened on 6 January.
In the article’s final paragraph, I think “saving American democracy” would be better served by less lawfare being used to get candidates off the ballot.

Alex Starling

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