Our politicians are not capable of negotiating a taxi fare, let alone Brexit

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The UK has come under scrutiny for their alleged lack of negotiating skills (Reuters)

Hunt is not qualified to be a Health Minister. The Chancellor is not an economist. Rudd has no qualifications to do her job. Look what messes they’re all making of it.

Now we watch as Davies et al make a hash of Brexit. He has no qualifications specifically in negotiating skills, and it shows. This whole thing is going to be a disaster. None of them are qualified to do anything in reality. We will pay the price, not them, by the way. Davies already has a pension that most will never get, as is the case with them all. Why should they worry?

T Maunder
Leeds

You couldn’t make it up! We are on the verge of making our biggest political mistake since the Prime Minister was duped by a very nasty piece of work with a pencil moustache, and whom do we send in to bat for us? A Clown, a Dodgy Dealer and a Sloppy Schmoozer. Golly! You wouldn’t trust them to negotiate the taxi fare home from the pub.

Yes, I know it’s good fun watching this hapless trio dropping their metaphorical trousers and throwing custard pies at one another, but it’s our children’s future that’s at stake.

Robert Curtis
Birmingham

The Brexit negotiations are an absolute shambles

It beggars belief that UK negotiators think their EU counterparts lack imagination and flexibility. The UK side appear to have left all planning and preparation for this incredibly complex operation until after the referendum, and then to have stitched together a bunch of deliberately ambiguous “positions”.

The 27 EU countries, meanwhile, got on with their rather more complex job of reaching agreements among themselves on the detail of a vast number of complex issues.

Our government seems determined to play to the right-wing gallery, creating the impression that we are being done down by those awful EU bureaucrats. It behoves them to remember that they initiated this stupidity, they didn’t expect the Leave campaign to win, and they failed to do any of the detailed preparation that should have preceded the referendum, let alone be honest with the public.

We should be grateful the EU is still prepared to talk to an ill-prepared and inexperienced team, and given the circumstances, it’s the UK that needs to engage with reality – and a little flexibility wouldn’t come amiss!

Lynda Newbery
Bristol

Why are we blindly following our politicians into Brexit?

If a teacher were sitting in a field telling a group of schoolchildren that they could jump off the drop at the edge of the field and it might be great fun, presumably quite a few of the class would say they liked the idea.

If the class then walked over to the field edge and looked over, only to realise what they had agreed to wasn’t just a short hop to a grassy pasture, but was actually a sheer cliff with rocks and a rough sea way below, it would be a strange teacher who didn’t ask the children if they were sure that they wanted to carry out their initial first response.

Most likely that would lead to calamity: at best, a stray tree sticking out from the cliff might break their fall leading to an emergency rescue. Injuries would certainly be sustained, come what may.

Odd then that our current government refuses to offer the British public a chance to choose again when we finally negotiate the terms of what could be a disastrous Brexit. No democratic “principle” will have been broken, and all honour satisfied.

Otherwise, the government is compelling people to jump off a cliff that many had no idea was present when they first voted. Why would any sane person insist on that?

Michael O’Hare
Middlesex

May the Force be with you

I read with interest the story of Britain’s luckiest man. He was tasered 11 times, run over with a car... and then shot. And the police were deemed to have used reasonable force.

I bet he’s glad he behaved himself. God forbid what they would have got up to had he really stepped out of line.

David Higgins
Yeovil

May will bow to the pro-business lobby over fat cat pay

Andreas Whittam Smith’s confidence in “public pressure” working to reduce fat cat pay will not be shared by many, as he admits the average “full time worker on a salary of £28000” would have to work 160 years to earn what a CEO of a big company receives in a year.

It’s little wonder British productivity is so low, when so much of companies’ profits go on bosses’ obscene pay levels, rather than in investment in training and technology.

May’s attempts to clamp down on excessive boardroom pay are farcical. There is no way the publication of companies’ pay ratios, non-executive directors representing employees, or a new public register of companies facing regular shareholder opposition over top-level pay will make any difference whatsoever.

Does May, or indeed Whittam Smith, actually believe that the employees’ representative arguing against yet another pay award for the boss will have any impact?

Without legislation forcing companies to comply, and without proper workers’ representatives having a say on companies’ pay policies, CEOs will continue to pocket obscene levels of pay, with the inevitable continued increase in inequality, and decrease in productivity.

Apparently, May has opined that the irresponsibility of excessive pay damages the “social fabric of our society”, but her rhetoric is well known for its ability to outweigh her actions, and once again she has backed down to the pro-business lobby which dominates her party.

Unfortunately, that same lobby cares not a jot about the condition of our society. Hopefully, Labour politicians will unite and attack this open goal, for this is clearly another example of the Tory leader shooting herself in the foot, and gifting the opposition more vote-winning opportunities!

Bernie Evans
Liverpool

Theresa has learnt her lesson

I find it refreshing that Theresa May has vowed to fight the next general election – perhaps it shows that she’s learnt her lesson after not bothering to fight the last one.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes