It’s not Jeremy Corbyn whom we should be calling a ‘mutton-headed old mugwump’

I have never had the desire to use the puerile expression "mutton-headed old mugwump". However, if I were to use it as a means to describe a person in current political circles, the image brought to mind by this expression is certainly not that of Jeremy Corbyn, but that of our esteemed Foreign Secretary.

Grant Serpell

Maidenhead

“Mutton headed mugwump” – best example of projection I’ve seen in a long time.

Jennifer Bell

Tiverton

A high tolerance

It is clear that the Tories plan to bludgeon the electorate into obedience via brainwashing. I am already infuriated by the constantly repeated “strong and stable” versus “coalition of chaos”, and we’ve got another six weeks of it to endure. If Theresa May does finally agree to a TV debate with other party leaders, no doubt she will be in full parrot mode, so what’s the point anyway?

If she thinks the Tories represent stability, I dread to think what her idea of chaos must be. I watched a programme last night that showed the intolerable strain young doctors are under in A&E departments, thanks to government cuts and mismanagement. The sleek and patrician David Cameron threw the country into turmoil by instigating a referendum on leaving the EU – just to placate one wing of his own party – then he bolted. The Crown Prosecution Service is considering criminal proceedings against numerous Conservatives for alleged fraudulent practices used to help win seats for the Tories in the last election.

Jeremy Corbyn may lack polish, but he is genuine. Sadly, the majority of the electorate has shown no sign of being sickened by the Tories, so they must have a very high tolerance of incompetence.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

Luck of the Irish?

Quite often people tell me how lucky I am to be Irish and as proud as that makes me feel I cannot help to feel a conflicting amount of shame. To know that according to my country my body is simply not my own feels so far from equal.

I am pro-choice, because what people do with their lives and bodies is quite frankly none of my business. I am not asking pro-life campaigners to give up their beliefs – I am simply just asking them to let us choose our own.

Every time I feel we are closer to having the freedom to choose, it seems we are being pushed further backward. The most recent case of knockbacks in my country is the control of the National Maternity Hospital being given to the Sisters of Charity. The Sisters have not paid full compensation for the Magdalene laundries, yet here they are been given a hospital?

Can they not give up the land as part of the compensation and waive ownership or any control over the hospital? If we are ever going to move toward body autonomy, this is certainly not the way to go. We need to speak up: women are 50 per cent of the population. Wake up, Ireland.

Martina Keogh

Tallaght

Stuck in the past

Anthony Rodriguez (Letters, 27 April) criticises Labour for advocating policies which would take Britain back 30 years. Yet Rodriguez himself wants to persevere with policies which were first introduced – 30 years ago. More stealth privatisation (marketisation is the weasel-word euphemism) of public services, more labour market flexibility (job insecurity and zero-hours contracts), tax cuts for big business and the rich (funded by higher VAT, which falls heavily on the less well-off), the revival of grammar schools, and a selfish look-after-yourself-and to-hell-with-everyone-else mentality.

How will continuation of these destructive and divisive policies reverse record levels of inequality, telephone-number salaries in the boardroom and the City, poverty wages which have to be supplemented with welfare payments, unaffordable housing, the decimation of public services, and a generation of aspirational young people saddled with a decades of debt as punishment for going to university?

Conservatives such as Rodriguez are the people who are stuck in the past, clinging to a fundamentally flawed and disastrously failing ideology, one which is causing misery and suffering to millions of citizens, and destroying the social fabric of Britain.

Pete Dorey

Bath

Two empty chairs

I noticed that Corbyn has joined May in her boycott of the electorate by refusing to take part in the TV debates. For the TV producers to lose one person is unfortunate; to lose two could begin to look a bit careless.

However, one assumes it is not carelessness on behalf of May as to why she won't compete in these debates. It appears to be a calculated manoeuvre to avoid being taken to task in front of the nation because of her catastrophic ineptitude for the task in hand. This has clearly been demonstrated by her brash statements such as "Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it". They very notion of her having any sort of plan is frankly laughable.

That's why I am voting Liberal Democrat. Not only do they have a fantastic stance on Brexit. But they are also anti grammar schools, pro-legalising marijuana and pro Votes at 16. It appears May is placing ideology over evidence and it is Britain that will suffer. There appears to be a problem with May, I have the solution, vote her out.

Callum Robertson

Peterborough

Red under the bed

I see North Korea has replaced the old USSR as the “red under the bed”. An American Republican with the surname Cruz has just stated their leader is a “dangerous, unpredictable dictator”. Thank whatever for Trump, then.

The UK's very own Trump, Boris Johnson, has also indicated that North Korea has a future if they agree not to be “threatening”. So America and the UK are never threatening? Not when they invade countries illegally? Not when they tell other countries how to behave? Not when they seem to believe they can do what they like in the world because they own it? Not when they seem to think they have a right to nuclear weaponry but nobody else has? Leaving aside the hypocrisy, these people, American and UK politicians, are no better than the Leader of North Korea that they are seeking to demonise. Be scared, but not of North Korea.

R Kimble

Leeds