My 83-year-old neighbour came for tea last week, but apologised for having to leave in a hurry. “I need to check how my hotpot supper is cooking,” she said. “It’s on the bonfire I’ve made from garden clippings.” That’s heating and eating in 2022 in Thérèse Coffey’s constituency.
Mary Clarke
Saxmundham, Suffolk
• Your article describes the Tory MP Robert Largan’s seat, High Peak in Derbyshire, as a “red wall seat” (Tory MPs tell Truss: sack Kwarteng or face mutiny, 28 September). It most certainly is not. Over the 40 years that I have lived here, High Peak has resembled a bellwether constituency, and has voted Tory far more than it has Labour. Hopefully the current shenanigans might lead it to return a Labour MP in the near future.
Sara Shaw
Glossop, Derbyshire
• Re Nick Boles’s article on the intellectually self-enclosed relationship between the prime minister and chancellor (I was a Tory MP, but Truss and Kwarteng have convinced me to vote Labour, 29 September), usually when Tory politicians start causing serious problems, men in grey suits are tasked to sort things out. In cases of folie à deux, however, men in white coats have been found to be a better bet.
Prof Alan Costall
Portsmouth
• Glyn Evans writes that “first past the post also has the advantage of preventing extreme parties from gaining power” (Letters, 29 September). Who does he think is in power right now?
Rich Chandler
Caldicot, Monmouthshire
