Rafael Behr depicts “Truss’s Tories” as being largely indifferent to endorsing a decontaminated nasty party (Liz Truss’s Tories are higher than ever on ideology – and they’re refusing to sober up, 4 October). Kwasi Kwarteng may assert that “we are a humane society”, but his ministerial colleagues offer evidence to the contrary.
Suella Braverman pillories a “Benefit Street culture” that, she says, needs “more stick”. Jake Berry tells those facing higher energy bills that they “can either cut their consumption, get a higher salary, or go out there and get that new job”. The prime minister, for her part, refuses to apologise to homeowners slammed by mortgage hikes and will not rule out using what Behr memorably calls her “jagged shard” of a shattered party to slash the promised increases to benefits.
Meanwhile, the government intends to throw millions to the richest members of this “humane society” by borrowing enough money to throw the markets into turmoil. This is the rise of a neo-nasty party intent on the pursuit of gain at the expense of the humane.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
• Suella Braverman has a dream: “I would love to have a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession,” she said at the Tory party conference.
I remember hearing Martin Luther King Jr speak in 1963. He had a dream. He spoke of freedom and equality for the enslaved and dispossessed. It was one of the greatest speeches in the English language, and still resounds today. How shameful and morally repellent that our home secretary can think that a plane full of asylum seekers flying to Rwanda would fulfil her dream.
Jennifer Basannavar
Twickenham, London
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