I agree with Chuka Umunna – let's build a horseshoe-shaped chamber for a new era of politics

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Saturday 09 March 2019 12:54 GMT
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Chuka Umunna: 'Politics is broken. It doesn't have to be this way. Let's change it'

I think that Chuka Umunna’s recently published pamphlet is the most interesting political document I have seen in a long time, not least the thinking on the case of the debating chamber.

I have long argued that the refurbishment of the parliament buildings should be used as an opportunity to build a new non-confrontational chamber on a different site. This would also free up the refurbished building for other beneficial uses, including perhaps a mixed housing project and other valuable social and community spaces. The Commons chamber could then be turned into a tourist attraction where famous debates could be played out by actors, with tourists and other members of the public playing roles as MPs. Could also be quite a useful income stream.

David Buckton
Cambridge

Damian Hinds should go

In a week when youth knife crime has been recognised as a national crisis, the extraordinary situation of an education secretary who is too busy to discuss school funding with head teachers (who are clearly at the end of their tether) is shameful. Damian Hinds should resign.

David Lowndes
Selhurst

More transparency needed

It might clear up the confusion as to what has happened to the increased education budget if we knew what proportion of it was spent on free schools and expanded grammar schools. None of these bear any relationship to local need and probably account for the current mess.

Joanna Pallister​
Address supplied

Just give up, will you?

Jeremy Corbyn has said that Theresa May must accept that defeat on Tuesday would “represent an unprecedented failure in British political history”. I so wish it weren’t worth saying, but Jeremy clearly does not understand the scale of the disaster that is about to befall our poor little country or his part in its downfall. The collision of a Tory party terrified of its Eurosceptic dinosaurs and a Labour Party led by a committed anti-EU dinosaur truly does represent an unprecedented failure in British political history. I weep.

Beryl Wall
London W4

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Try, try try again!

Cannot Ms May accept that when MPs say no, then NO means NO?

Peter Erridge​
East Grinstead

Time for a revolution

Lest we forget; the Conservative Party caused it, the Conservative Party supported it, and thankfully, they botched it!

Seize the day! We’ve already slipped from 5th to 6th in the Ivy League of wealthy nations. Just think of how much could have been put right at home with the money they’ve squandered, trying to cover up David Cameron’s monumental misjudgements to save party credibility, and de facto, their own skins.

Listen to these charlatans no more. They fed lies into a cesspit situation and so muddied the waters that they could no longer see the way forward themselves. They’re caked in the stench of their own tepid ammonia – complicit, and driven solely by personal greed at the expense of all else. So now there’s a lingering and lasting stench about everything they do. Karma?

Michael Cunliffe
Ilkley

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