I was beginning to quite like Rishi Sunak – until he started acting like this

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Where does this irrational animus against experts come from? (REUTERS)

Although not a Tory voter I was beginning to quite like Mr Sunak – and who wouldn’t, given the competition? But in his desperate final charge for the leadership he is beginning adopt a worrying number of misguided populist memes. Like many of his colleagues, he seems to want to hobble the courts’ interventions in administrative and constitutional issues. Now, he is revealing his suspicion of the value of scientific and medical advice during the pandemic.

Sunak must know perfectly well that in many areas of modern life we put our lives and livelihoods in the hands of highly-trained specialists – not just surgeons and airline pilots, but also in technicians in less high profile professions, like electricians, motor mechanics and software engineers. Most of us could certainly not have become high level financial managers in the City, as Sunak himself once was, without great natural ability and years of specialist training.

Where does this irrational animus against experts come from? We all get things wrong occasionally, but on complex issues outside my own experience, I would always trust an expert rather than my own horse sense.