Politicians need to stop equating violent crime with mental illness

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Promoting a link between violence and mental illness increases stigma and makes sufferers vulnerable to attack (PA)

I lived in Hackney for eight years and enjoyed it greatly. I am becoming increasingly angered by officials and politicians chanting the tired clichés about “partnership agencies” and “lessons will be learned”.

I am angered also by politicians trying to make political gain by these recent deaths, on both sides. What is really exasperating me, though, are the frequent references to the need to work with mental health services. Politicians have spoken of trying to reduce the stigma around mental illness, and Theresa May even publicly spoke of her support for the Yorkshire Evening Post #SpeakYourMind initiative.

Yet time and time again these elected officials draw, as Diane Abbott has today, a link between violence and mental illness by referring to these services, thereby promoting a stereotype that increases stigma and makes sufferers vulnerable to attack too.

Mental illness should not be associated automatically with violence these days. It is specious and inaccurate, and it can only have negative consequences on society as a whole.

Dr R Kimble
Leeds

The UK should consider partnering with Russia, rather than antagonising them

The recent uproar over Russia is evocative of the Cold War era with one difference. The Cold War era has always been synonymous with communism which in turn meant Stalinism, authoritarianism, prison camps, gulags and the impossibility of criticism.

However, this eclipses the fact that Russia has long passed its post-Stalinist conjuncture with regard to successes in modernising and ameliorating its standard of living, geopolitical leverage and global standing.

I think rather than antagonising Russia, the British government should partner with them to solve shared challenges ranging from environmental degradation and the melting of the Arctica to climate change and poverty, antimicrobial resistance, transcendiary diseases, terrorism and conflicts.

Dr Munjed Farid al Qutob
London NW2

It doesn’t make sense for Russia to be behind the Skripal poisoning

While I do not wish to comment upon whether Boris Johnson did or did not lie or whether the BBC did or did not consider this to be a newsworthy story, there is still one thing that perplexes me.

For an apparently military grade nerve agent, the lack of fatalities is surprising especially considering it was supposedly administered to those wearing no kind of protective clothing.

Aren’t these kinds of chemicals meant to be deadly?

When an amateur terrorist organisation can kill 13 people almost immediately in the Tokyo Metro with one nerve agent, how does this compare against a state with effectively unlimited resources seemingly unable to produce a nerve agent able to kill a single person?

Alan Gregory
Cheshire

Boris Johnson must be sacked

I am writing to express my displeasure in having such an embarrassment as a foreign secretary. It is unacceptable to listen to the way he portrays other nations, his constant lying and frankly uneducated views on very important international matters.

I am embarrassed to say that I am British with the current state of affairs, not to mention that he gets paid for such complete f***-ups.

Matt McAuliffe
Address supplied

I cannot vote for Labour if they fail to address antisemitism in the party

I am a Jew in my early seventies. In the past I’ve been a fervent supporter of Israel. I find that impossible now, but do not voice my views anymore because of the reactions of some other Jews.

I’ve only voted Conservative once, to help ensure Ken Livingstone wasn’t re-elected as London mayor. I normally vote Labour, but I don’t feel I can this time because there are very real issues regarding antisemitism which clearly aren’t being addressed. That makes me sad.

Name supplied
Address supplied

There are better options than the sugar tax

As you indicate, this tax is regressive. Why can’t the government simply legislate that all drinks and food should have a maximum sugar content per 100 millilitres or 100 grams and avoid this situation?

Michael Hale
Stourbridge