Sorry to be a pedantic killjoy, but you can’t voluntarily pay extra tax (Letters, 4 October). If you pay more tax than you owe, it will sit as a credit on your HMRC tax account to be offset against your future liabilities. You can send a donation (not extra tax) to the exchequer, but if you have spare cash and want to do good, give it to food banks and other charities that directly support the most vulnerable.
Stephen Hardwick
London
• I have yet to see any rationale for stopping all benefits for seven days before starting a claim for universal credit (Report, 3 October), when the claimant is simply transferring from existing benefits to which they are entitled. How much money does the government “save” through this mean-spirited policy?
Ruth Eversley
Paulton, Somerset
• The solution to the problem of gun control in the US and the second amendment is simple. Allow everyone to own a weapon from 1791, thus meeting the arguments about citizen rights and also rendering them relatively harmless.
Roger Bardell
Welwyn, Hertfordshire
• Grant Shapps is reported as saying that Theresa May should quit because “the writing is on the wall” (Rebel Tories seek advice on toppling May, 6 October). But aren’t others saying that she should go because the writing fell off the wall?
Claude Scott
Richmond, Surrey
• The PM probably appointed Boris Johnson as foreign secretary on the Lyndon Johnson principle that it was better to have someone inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. He has defied those simple options by pissing inside the tent.
Peter Clark
Frome, Somerset
• I must have missed all the other letters complaining about the disappearance of Notes and Queries. Thursdays are not the same without it.
Martin Fowkes
Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
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