The Reader: Suspending Parliament was far from ‘routine’

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Parliamentary procedure: Boris Johnson
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2 September 2019
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What would have happened if Jeremy Corbyn had bypassed Parliament in the same way that Boris Johnson has done? Would the response be so sanguine? It would be called a coup soon enough. Claiming the move to suspend Parliament is just “routine” is an insult to our intelligence.
Barry Tighe

What happened regarding the proroguing of Parliament beggars belief.

It doesn’t matter whether you voted Remain or Leave in the referendum — the most important thing is that you voted. But the debacle of the past three years has merely confirmed to me that the decision was not as binary as we thought.

Let’s assume for a minute that we leave the European Union without a deal. It may or may not be the choice the country has made but to me the problem has become constitutional. Boris Johnson has made a decision to prorogue Parliament — but that decision was not made by Parliament.

I vote for my MP to give me a voice. This means that we all have no say in what happens in this country during that period of time.

If you voted to take control through our parliamentary democracy, you have just lost that control.
Tony Howarth

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Barry and Tony

One person’s “democratic outrage” is another person’s expression of the “will of the people”. There is a lot of hyperbole around at the moment.

I prefer to stick to the following simple truths. First, if you can assemble a majority in the House of Commons then you can run the country. Second, there are only two ways to assemble that majority — either you need to persuade existing MPs to back you, or you need to change those MPs by having a general election. And third, these days prime ministers cannot by themselves call general elections.

My advice if you want to navigate the next few weeks is to ignore all the noise and keep these basic rules in mind.

George Osborne, Editor

Many pupils need cheap uniforms

Further to Laura Craik’s column [“Getting Schooled”, ES Magazine, August 29], the sad reality is that there are many parents for whom the annual school shop is a cause of great anxiety. For those families surviving on incredibly low salaries, £1.75 shirts offer a way to ensure their children adhere to school standards and are not subjected to the negative attention second-hand clothing brings. These parents are doing all they can for their children and it is not right to imply that they are “irresponsible” for not questioning the ethics and sustainability of the clothes they buy.

While I am fully aware of the importance of sustainability, and the horrendous labour practices that go into the production of such items, there is an additional, and often exorbitant, price tag attached to ethically sourced clothing.

“Don’t kids deserve to be dressed sustainably and responsibly too?” asks Laura. Yes. They also deserve to attend school with breakfast in their bellies and a clean shirt on. Some parents have to make hard choices.
Dom Kehat

Amazon inferno: don’t preach, help

Graham Mills’s idea [“Save the world’s ‘Survival Regions’”, August 29] was great. However, care needs to be taken: we must not forget that the commercial world has benefited from the destruction of forests/the natural environment over many hundreds of years — it just happened to be before destroying our planet was a global concern.

We cannot therefore preach to those only now making use of their “assets” to generate wealth. Instead we must help them see that we have all been wrong, and there is a better shared path we can all contribute to through reforestation and reinstating of natural habitats, and sharing of knowledge and resources.
Richard Lewis

NHS needs more than basic funding

David Perham [“Use NHS boost for London hospitals”, August 29] clearly illustrates the inadequacy of the Government’s proposals for funding our NHS.

Official figures continue to reveal lengthening waits for a vast range of services, yet we expect long-suffering NHS staff not just to do their own jobs but also to cover for the 100,000 NHS posts that remain vacant. Why won’t the Government start to recognise what is needed and raise our NHS funding at least to the level of equivalent EU economies?
Francis Prideaux

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