Philip Mathias News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

SIR – As a churchwarden for 16 years, and with 20 years’ experience as an immigration judge, I would like to offer my thoughts regarding the granting of asylum on the basis of “conversion” to Christianity (report, February 5). My experience of hearing appeals was that the process of assessing whether conversion had truly taken place was not only extraordinarily difficult, but also wide open to abuse. Any testing on the basis of knowledge of the Bible or of Christian teaching would be open to cri

SIR – Sir Simon Clarke thinks that changing the leadership of the Conservative Party yet again could result in an election victory (“Rishi Sunak has gone from asset to anchor for the Tories”, Commentary, January 15). If there is some miraculous saviour waiting in the wings to salvage this tumultuous group of people and instil some sense of loyalty, trustworthiness and ability to govern in them, that person is well and truly hidden.

SIR – Ignoring the fact – as successive governments have done for 20 years – that the Royal Navy is a third of the size this country needs it to be, one despairs of the predictability of the Ministry of Defence’s response to its shortage of manpower (“Navy has so few sailors ships must be scrapped”, report, January 5).

The UK’s nuclear deterrent is often referred to as the Continuous At Sea Deterrent. Inevitably abbreviated to CASD, it is one of the more accurate military descriptors out there.

Mismanagement ashore is placing Royal Navy sailors under enormous strain