As a young woman in London, I feel empowered by the debate which Sarah Everard’s death sparked

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As a young woman in London it is empowering to see the commitment to thorough reporting of the Sarah Everard case and the subsequent conversation appearing on social media about harassment of women in public.

I have learnt from the news that it was both doorbell and dash cam footage that contributed to the investigation into this tragic case. As we have now proven that public interest and thorough reporting of missing people can help the police significantly, what would newspapers think about publishing photographs of recent missing people on the back page of the paper every morning, rather than an advert or sports?

This would mean loss of income from advertising for the newspaper, but perhaps could be made up for through donations from both the newspaper and police funds. It will clearly help missing people investigations if more members of the public were on the lookout.

Miriam Schechter

London

No, let’s keep talking about nurses’ pay

Don’t say any more, James Moore, please don’t say any more.

It’s pay for nurses that is the object of the government’s derisory offer, and while there is acknowledgement for other workers – without whom the country would not be able to operate even at the sad level it currently manages – there is no category of working people putting their lives more on the line every day.

Excruciating, supporting circumstances which nurses face include: extended hours, inadequacy or absence of PPE, a shortage of staff numbering 40,000 (not helped by obstacles placed in the way of non-British staff remaining in the NHS), and the detrimental emotional effect of seeing their patients die in horrific numbers.

So, having heard you out, get back to your Kool-Aid.

Eddie Dougall

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Not a good look

It isn’t a remotely good look for the government that right-wing backbenchers like Iain Duncan-Smith are threatening to rebel against the government’s wishes to ignore the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill.

It is frankly embarrassing that a right-wing Brexiteer appears more “switched on” than Boris Johnson’s administration on such a crucial issue. The government ought to promptly heed the warnings of its backbenchers, the House of Lords and opposition parties and rethink its approach to the shocking human rights abuses being committed in China.

Sebastian Monblat

Sutton

Bravery in the face of injustice

What an impassioned column by Shappi Khorsandi for the much hoped and desired release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from Iranian captivity. I fully admire her and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq for not for one moment allowing this travesty of justice to disappear from plain sight. We are all behind husband Richard, daughter Gabriella and family in hoping that indeed she will be freed and allowed to come home. He himself has shown remarkable and consummate bravery and resolve.

No doubt Nazanin will have many inherent mental health problems to face in the future. But hopefully she will be able to do so with her loving family and friends surrounding her in a tightly held ring of compassion, empathy and strength.

Khorsandi has dire knowledge of how this imprisonment, in all its cruel ways, will have been meted out to Nazanin and it beggars belief. She has always been the innocent victim in this issue and let’s hope and pray that this court tomorrow will release her, so at long last she can be reunited and allowed to rebuild her life with every means at her disposal. She deserves nothing less.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Where’s the Brexit opposition when you need it?

The revelation that the UK’s exports to the EU fell by an alarming 40.7 per cent in January may indeed be attributed in part to “teething problems” around adjusting to new custom controls and more onerous paperwork.

But even if two-thirds of this EU export and import trade is eventually recovered, it would still represent an unprecedented collapse in trade with our continental neighbours unseen perhaps outside of wartime, with all the dire consequences for British business viability, jobs and our full economic recovery from the pandemic downturn.

Such circumstances would seem to offer the leader of the opposition a golden opportunity to assail Johnson’s withdrawl agreement. Instead Sir Keir Starmer remains conspicuously reticent about bringing up the subject of Brexit, as if he still regards it as poisonous to Labour’s electoral ambitions, particularly in those red wall seats.

Possibly he feels rather hamstrung by the fact that he whipped his Labour MPs to vote for the deal. But at the same time Sir Keir also told the government: "We will hold you to account for it every second you are in power for the promises you have made and the promises you break. Responsibility for this deal lies squarely with you." Perhaps it is now time to begin delivering on those words.

Paul Dolan

Northwich, Cheshire

SNP strains

The SNP’s greatest achievement was to escape the normal laws of political gravity. As both incumbent and insurgent, the SNP eschewed scrutiny. In power for longer than Thatcher or New Labour, the party dominates Scottish life. But such unchallenged success is increasingly difficult as they become the status quo.

The strains are showing. Factionalism and in-fighting reign, where once party discipline was absolute. And disagreement over timing, tactics and currency risk contaminating the ultimate independence goal. As political gravity returns, Scottish politics is getting interesting again.

Nigel Anthony

London