“Not a shred of work was done in the ward,” said a “Labour insider” of the shock council result in Hampstead Town, when a Labour councillor was returned for the first time in the ward’s history (How Boris Johnson’s Conservatives lost their grip on London). This came as a surprise to my 81-year-old mother and other local party members, who have been pounding the streets of Hampstead for months in the buildup to this election. In politics, as in so much of life, quiet hard work gets things done and yet all too easily goes unnoticed.
Kitty Stewart
London
• I wonder if the government’s disastrous handling of our economy, inflation, food banks, energy prices and Brexit is really a deliberate immigration policy, to make our country unattractive?
Martin Cooper
Bromley, Kent
• A female colleague said to me: “What beautiful eyes you have. In fact, I think you would have been really pretty when you were younger” (Letters, 6 May). I was 66 at the time.
Patricia Newsome
Ossett, West Yorkshire
• One day, walking along with my daughter who was dressed in pink, a woman stopped and said: “What a lovely little boy.” “She’s a girl, actually,” I replied. “Are you sure?” was the stranger’s reply.
Janet Mansfield
Aspatria, Cumbria
• Obscure words in songs (Letters, 6 May)? “There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium”, not to mention the rest in Tom Lehrer’s The Elements.
Tony Abramson
Leeds
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