The Reader: Farage milkshake: lactose against the intolerant

Nigel Farage is the latest seriously dislikable politician contesting the EU elections to have been drenched with a milkshake while out campaigning. Others include Ukip’s odious Carl Benjamin and far-Right “activist” Tommy Robinson.

Yet Benjamin has “joked” about raping Labour MP Jess Phillips while Farage has vowed to “don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines” if Brexit is not delivered to his liking. A milkshake splatter is a non-violent action way of exposing those who are promoting and encouraging racism in society. It is using lactose against the intolerant.
Sasha Simic

On the day Ted Heath signed us all into the Common Market in the Seventies, a French woman tipped a bottle of ink over him because she thought Britain should not be admitted as we’d only cause trouble. How prophetic she was.

So-called self-styled members of “Fathers for Justice” tipped powdered paint all over Liberal Democrat candidate Jody Dunn at the Hartlepool by-election count in 2004 because she was a barrister who took family cases. And of course John Prescott was egged during the 2001 general election campaign — and punched his egger.
Nigel Boddy

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Sasha and Nigel

There are several reasons why it is not a good idea to throw things at politicians and only one of them is that it’s not a nice thing to do. Just because there is a history of similar incidents doesn’t make it right.

Another is that it gives them just the sort of publicity they want: Nigel Farage would rather we saw him as an insurgent victim of troublemakers than someone with big questions to answer on how his party is funded.

Surely if you don’t like a politician the best thing to do is stand and campaign against them? Maybe that sounds prim. But I’d rather see Farage crushed at the ballot box than splattered with an overpriced cream drink.

Julian Glover, Associate Editor (Comment)

Cancer nursing needs more funds

your story that the number of European nurses arriving in Britain has fallen dramatically since the Brexit referendum [May 20] is demonstrative of the significant crisis that now faces our cancer support workforce.

For people living with cancer it’s so important to be able to talk to a professional who has the time to listen and support you and your individual needs. But too many nurses simply do not have the time to provide the standard of care their patients deserve.

We’ve heard from nurses who speak of unbearable pressure, unable to give a patient the extra 10 minutes of support they need and going home devastated because they have had to prioritise treatments. Worse still, an unsustainable workload is forcing many into early retirement.

We urgently need a Government plan to address the challenges faced by our nurses and doctors: this must be prioritised in the spending review.
Fran Woodard
Macmillan Cancer Support

Blond ambition out in the open

Boris Johnson has finally announced publicly what everybody always knew: that he harbours a single-minded ambition to lead the country. But what Conservative Party members should take care to consider before they cast their votes for their next leader is this: who will the electorate trust to lead the UK and be our representative on the world stage?

Politics seems like a game to Boris. He has no vision for our nation, just a vision of himself at the helm. Removing Theresa May at this juncture looks to be a self-indulgent, foolish act — prioritising internal party squabbles — but replacing her with Johnson would be suicidal.
Julian Self

‘Game of thrones’ heads downstairs

I suspect that the increasingly trumpeted so-called “rivalry” between the households of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is fostered by the courtiers who work for them, rather than William, Kate, Harry and Meghan themselves.

But it was always thus. Those “below stairs” were always more obsessed with enforcing and maintaining their own social hierarchy than those who employed them. The two households are doing a great job of connecting with the people — in different ways.
Robert Readman