There is no precedent for applying the recent way of selecting party leaders – an entirely private matter – to the selection of a prime minister, holding a public office (Our country is changed utterly…, Opinion, 9 July). Voters elected Conservative MPs who, constitutionally, should choose when a new prime minister is needed between general elections and who can be held to account for their decision; voters did not elect the rank and file of the Conservative party, and the office of prime minister is not their private possession. A decision made by them would be potentially an extraparliamentary coup, imposing a prime minister without legitimacy and a political programme never submitted to the UK electorate. The Labour party’s silence on the matter is understandable, probably with even worse results, but it is puzzling that there is not more public anger. Anyone who feels strongly should sign my ‘Outlaw the choosing of prime ministers by party members who are not MPs’ petition at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/159659.
Dorian Gerhold
(a House of Commons clerk, 1978-2012)
• I’m not a Conservative, but Theresa May has given a dignified and appropriately reticent account of how she coped with involuntary childlessness. She has been equally candid about her no-nonsense management of type 1 diabetes. Presumably Andrea Leadsom would not suggest that this makes May more likely to be an advocate for a decent national health service than those who do not do not live with such a condition.
The Revd Canon Michael Ainsworth
Bradshaw, Bolton
• Attending a meeting held by the then Minister for Children just over a decade ago I thought it might prove no great problem, given her brief, that my childcare arrangements had gone awry, and trundled to Westminster with pertinent documents under one arm and infant daughter, bottle, rusks etc in the other. Our host’s stare, however, felt cold and hard. In contrast, Theresa May, another attendee, kindly held and warmly entertained my child while I sorted my papers ahead of the chair’s opening remarks on Sure Start.
Alan Coombe
Independent adviser on child protection and early intervention, London
• One of the skills Andrea Leadsom still has to master is the art of keeping mum.
Toby Wood
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
