Andrew Rixon News Today

SIR – The Rochdale by-election shambles (“Labour disowns candidate in anti-Semitism row”, report, February 13) reveals the inadequacy of Sir Keir Starmer, and helps explain his numerous U-turns as Labour leader.

SIR – I am not old enough to remember 1937, with which the present moment has been compared, but I can remember the aftermath of the Second World War. People who had fought – as well as those who, for sound reasons, had stayed at home – all expressed dismay over how unprepared Britain had been, despite the warnings from some politicians and the military. Rishi Sunak’s comments about the British military being a “voluntary force” (“PM forced to rul...

SIR – Allister Heath (“Post Office scandal has exposed the elite’s contempt for Middle England”, Comment, January 11) nails what the majority think about the overpaid, unaccountable “corporate-bureaucratic class”. You see its actions everywhere. The same is true of the current political class. Look at Sir Keir Starmer. He was director of public prosecutions while sub-postmasters were being taken to court. It seems incredible that he did not know about th...

Plus: interest rates for savers; Rolls-Royce’s nuclear reactors; fighting serious fraud; the ban on oil boilers; and misunderstood dogs

SIR – There are two or three aspects of the private schools debate that nobody seems to be thinking about (Letters, December 3).

SIR – It is an insult to taxpayers that many civil servants are still working from home.

SIR – The plans to cover an area “the size of Exmoor” with solar panels are just another example of woolly-headed government thinking on energy.

SIR – Compulsory metering cannot be justified where the supplier is a private monopoly, and certainly not by a Government whose central plank is competition (“Water meters may be forced on households, report, February 19”).

SIR – The first week of Cop26 has seen hundreds of private jets, Tesla cars recharged by diesel generators, the obscene emissions of Joe Biden’s entourage, India stating it will take 50 years to reach net zero, and China not even present – and all for the sake of some unenforceable pledges.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission  Credit: Johanna Geron/Reuters SIR – If it wasn’t apparent already, the stance of Brussels in the latest rounds of negotiations for a trade deal makes it absolutely clear that the EU has no intention of according Britain the respect and consideration that almost any other independent nation on earth would be granted as a matter of course. Instead, we were treated with disdain. If it can do that to the nation which by its actions in...