More time off work sounds great – but what about those of us who have to work through bank holidays?

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Adding additional public holidays sounds great (“Working people deserve a break: Ministers urged to create more UK bank holidays” 27 August), and for those in employment where they only get the statutory minimum annual leave, it would be of great benefit.

However, for those who work in the public sector, in social care, in retail, in leisure, and industries where production can not be just turned off for the day, it would increase pressure rather than decrease it. It would also increase costs in those areas as staff on duty on those days would have to be paid on higher rates of pay.

Patients still have to be nursed, prisoners guarded and fed, power stations manned, elderly people cared for and more crowded streets policed.

The same number of hospital appointments, teaching days, visa and benefits application reviews would then be crushed into fewer working days increasing the pressure on those staff rather than decreasing it.

Surely it would be better just to increase the minimum statutory annual leave to allow the burden to be spread and ensure that staffing levels in all these critical areas are adequate to meet demand.

Anne Robson
Wiltshire

The Queen’s dilemma

We really have to ask ourselves what a constitutional monarchy is actually for if it cannot or will not act to save us from a minority government with a prime minister selected by less than 0.15 per cent of the UK population. In what is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy, the government will enlist the Queen’s support to shut down parliament in order to inflict war-time levels of chaos and suffering on the country in a policy that will, according to its own advisors, lead to food and medical supply shortages and will therefore result in otherwise avoidable deaths.

This is all on the back of an advisory referendum in which two of the four countries in our supposedly “precious Union” voted to Remain, only 37 per cent of the electorate voted Leave, and no one voted for a no-deal Brexit because the entire Leave campaign was based on the oft-repeated claim that a great deal would inevitably fall into our laps.

The Queen’s top priority has reportedly always been to avoid embroiling the monarchy in a constitutional crisis. In this unprecedented situation, there is no way forward that will allow her to do so. On the one hand, there is a constitutional crisis that would be brought about by the monarch’s intervening in politics; on the other, the constitutional crisis that would be brought about by her failure to prevent this appalling assault on our parliamentary democracy and national wellbeing.

Let us hope she has the courage to choose the one that best serves the interests of the country, rather than merely the perceived interests of the monarchy itself.

Paula Kirby
Inverness

Hanging together?

Is it just possible that the long hoped for progressive alliance is taking shape? Good sense seems to have prevailed among Labour, the Lib Dems and other opposition party leaders on opposing a no-deal Brexit.

It is to be hoped that this incipient coalition of the willing will grow and thrive. Most of us have had enough of the reputation of our once-great nation being trashed by a gang of right-wing populists.

Andrew McLuskey
Address supplied

We’re all responsible

Why are we suddenly so shocked that the destruction of rainforests for commercial gain is now out of control? We have known about the forests’ ecological importance and about their progressive destruction for many years.

I remember decades ago, long before the current spread of palm oil and soya plantations, reading about the clearing of swathes of the Amazon jungle for farming, and thinking even then that very soon the UN would have to send in troops to stop the deforestation process.

We may blame small farmers or logging companies in Brazil, big international corporations or blinkered populist presidents, but we are all implicated because we buy the food products of this ignorant and short-sighted vandalism.

I also remember, again, quite some years ago, reading about precious hardwoods from Indonesian rainforests being cut down for single-use as shuttering for pouring concrete in the Japanese building industry, after which the timber would just be burnt. But again we are all implicated when we buy garden furniture or other products made from Indonesian hardwoods.

Only an alliance of leading governments around the world and some pretty tough coordinated action in the face of relentless lobbying from powerful commercial interests could stop the disastrous exploitation of this crucial natural environment. But with ineluctable population growth, everyone wanting a higher standard of living and more consumer products, and almost every country trying to put its own interest first, how likely is that?

Gavin Turner
Gunton

Why should Carnival just be for Caribbeans?

After reading Kuba Shand-Baptiste’s piece (“As a Caribbean Londoner I’ve been to Carnival all my life – but what I saw this weekend really troubled me” 27 August), I felt I had to give her a very different viewpoint on the same scene. I’m a first-generation Briton with parents who came here from West Africa. I grew up, like Ms Shand-Baptiste, about 10 minutes from Notting Hill and have lived in the area for over 20 years.

Carnival is a proud expression of the defiance the Windrush generation showed in the face of racists who wanted to send them back. They brought a bit of the islands small and big to west London. Notting Hill has been a welcome refuge for those escaping oppression, whether Brazilians from military juntas, Portuguese people from the Salazar dictatorship or Spanish people from Franco. It makes for an extraordinary mix and evolution.

Carnival has evolved from its Caribbean roots to reflect the multicultural home it occupies in Notting Hill. At the predominantly house sound system I passed at 3pm, the silence for Grenfell was impeccably observed.

A London bank holiday infused with predominantly Caribbean but also other flavours is a thing to celebrate in these divisive times. If its survival depends on brand sponsorship then frankly that is a price worth paying for it to continue. Carnival belongs to the people, all the people.

John Armah
London W11