This Conservative Government is 'drowning in a rising tide of sleaze'

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John Whittingdale (PA)

The Whittingdale scandal is just the latest evidence to highlight that this Conservative government is in danger of drowning in a rising tide of sleaze, incompetence and policy failure. There is not just a whiff but a rising stench of decay at the heart of a government which is sliding into a John Major post-1992 “pantsdown” farce.

A lack of personal judgement on Whittingdale's part reflects poorly on both the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister. It is not just an alleged lack of discretion at the heart of the Whittingdale scandal, it is Whitingdale's hypocrisy in voting against equal marriage yet expecting the “full confidence” of the Prime Minister and the forgiveness of society for his own foibles.

If there is a grain of truth in the tabloid rumours, Whittingdale has not only let down his party and Government, he has also potentially put state security at risk by foolishly posting snaps of cabinet meetings to his whip-wielding “ex”.

Too often, David Cameron has indulged faltering ministers with the benefit of the doubt only to bow to the inevitable and let them go. To avoid his entire government becoming contaminated and submerged in a swirling deluge of calumny, if Whittingdale has not done the decent thing already, the PM must sack him, with no prospect of bringing him back once the media storm has subsided. He is now damaged goods, an object of national ridicule and a betrayer of the most basic standards of moral decency.

Anthony Rodriguez
Staines-upon-Thames

Get the facts right on Europe

The European referendum is extremely important, so that it should concern us greatly that the official “Leave” campaign has opened their campaign with an issue based on figures which are manifestly wrong. We do not pay £350m each week to Brussels. Our rebate is taken off before we pay. Last year we paid about £250m a week.

Oliver Wright (“Brexit campaigners accused of hypocrisy for invoking NHS”, 16 April) uses a better figure of £10.6bn net a year, but the Treasury figure for last year is £9.8bn, which equates to £188m a week.

This is net of EU payments to the UK government like agricultural subsidies. If Boris Johnson wants to pay this to the NHS, it presumably means no subsidies at all for British farmers. I hope that they will note this.

But even this figure is too high. The EU makes grants direct to UK institutions, such as research grants on which our universities depend. This reduces the net cost to around £162m a week, or less than £2.50 each. For this we get all the benefits of being in the EU. We can argue how much that is, but one wonders how strong the Vote Leave case can be if they have to grossly exaggerate the cost of EU membership.

David Bell
Ware

Why is Obama coming here to tell us we are better off within the EU? Would America give up their sovereignty and allow other countries to tell them what to do? Would America let Mexico Chilli Argentina and Canada make the laws that the USA would have to live by? Would America let migrants from South America and Canada move freely across its borders without any kind of controls? Would America let Mexico and South America tell them who they must let in and who they must keep in their country because of some human rights laws made elsewhere?

If the answer to that is ‘No, they would not’, then why is he coming here to tell us that we must do what he refuses to do?

John Moffatt
Bredbury

Boris seems to completely ignore the fact that the states in America shared far more sovereignty than we would share in the European Union. Perhaps he should think about what United States means.

Andrew Wilson
Macclesfield

Good old Boris. He missed a big clue in the name United States of America. It is a federation of states. “Ever closer union” writ large. I think Barack Obama has every right to talk to us Boris!

Robert Swan
Address withheld

What do the people of Arkansas want?

Your headline, ‘Bernie Sanders Fury meets Clinton’s pragmatism’, is not just trite but more than a little misleading. What current political coverage needs is evidence-based analysis. The Clinton’s come out of Arkansas, where they’ve had three terms governing the state and two terms as the Presidential administration in the White House. The result is that the Clintons are multi-millionaires enjoying institutional relationships with Goldman Sachs et al, while Arkansas suffers some of the worst examples of poverty in the country.

In the 2014 US poverty rankings, Arkansas came 48th out of 50 states. And one of the two remaining worse-off states – Louisiana – had recently suffered major environmental catastrophe. The question therefore for voters is, do they want more of the same self-serving ‘pragmatism’ that’s been inflicted on Arkansas or should they look at what Sanders ‘fury’ has achieved in Vermont?

Dr Gavin Lewis
Manchester

Junior doctors prepare for first all-out strike

The first all-out strike by junior doctors in England seems likely to occur on 26 and 27 April 2016. Consultants and permanent medical staff will provide emergency NHS care on these days, thereby ensuring patient safety for urgent and ongoing care. This is a familiar arrangement that occurs every six months when junior doctors change training posts and attend one to two days' induction training at their new place of work – although the circumstances will be admittedly very different during industrial action.

The Government states that the new junior doctor contract must be imposed in August in order for the NHS to provide so-called modern-day levels of public access, and as part of delivering the yet-to-be determined “truly seven-day NHS”.

As an NHS hospital doctor with 24 years' experience, I have always enjoyed my unimpeded weekend and bank holiday commutes to and from work, which continue to this day. However, I do live in northern England where there is already an unprecedented fall in training post fill-rates of junior doctors competing with me for road-space.

The acceleration in the failure to retain doctors in training exacerbated by this deeply flawed contract will make the NHS increasingly unsafe for junior doctors and, in turn, for all of us who rely upon them. This is why there is such unwavering widespread support for junior doctors among the public, NHS employees, public sector workers, Royal medical colleges and The Patients Association.

Dr David Laws
Consultant anaesthetist
Newcastle-upon-Tyne

A&E waits are at an all-time high. Patient care targets are being missed and doctor shortages are so severe that an entire hospital has been forced to close. Yet, despite this, the government presses ahead with its plan of not training more doctors, just stretching the current crop even more thinly and paying them less for more hours. Alongside this it is cutting pharmacist funding and scrapping nursing training bursaries. We will be lucky if we have any healthcare workers left in the next few years.

As for the NHS, the future looks bleak under this administration. The contract being imposed on junior doctors is only the tip of the iceberg, but it is something we must continue to fight. If the junior doctors lose, resistance against further NHS cuts will be massively weakened and the path to dismantling of services and privatisation will be cleared.

A vote for junior doctors is a vote for the NHS. We will not stop fighting to save our healthcare service, whatever it takes.

Dr Jonathan Barnes
Anaesthetic Junior Doctor
London, N4

Have your say on the arms trade

You say bi-annual and I say biennial. Either way, when it comes to arms fairs, let’s call the whole thing off.

Deborah Minchom
London, NW2