Gary Younge is right that Theresa May “could not navigate her way out of the Brexit mess”, but her biggest failing was a shortage of human empathy rather than a lack of political skill (Farewell then, Theresa. Your best was never good enough, Journal, 19 July).
Mrs May came into office in 2016 with a passionate promise to tackle the “burning injustices” that scar the lives and limit the prospects of many British people. However, her oddly cold reaction to the Grenfell Tower fire including, in particular, failing at first to meet victims, showed she was not in touch with the basic needs and feelings of ordinary people.
Also, the UN special rapporteur, Philip Alston, reported in recent months that the government continues to inflict “extreme poverty” on the population with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies. Ultimately, it’s the actions of politicians rather than clever rhetoric that determines their legacy; a fact her probable successor is also about to uncomfortably discover.
Joe McCarthy
Dublin
• Gary Younge writes a fitting but sad epitaph on the outgoing prime minister. The Conservative party, in allowing her to fill the post, did the country a huge disservice, apparently for want of anyone better. She was warned early on that her Brexit commitments were incompatible with one another, while her leadership qualities were vastly overestimated.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that both she and her party displayed a woeful lack of intelligence in trusting her suitability for her main task. Her reliably fierce partisanship was the least of the qualities required for a divided country. We are all the worse for it.
Henry Gold
Bildeston, Suffolk
• It is unduly cruel of you to publish Theresa May’s article (Fathers need more paternity leave, for all the family’s sake, 19 July). Has the poor woman not suffered enough? She says she is “proud” to have launched, as one of her final acts as PM, a consultation on paternity leave. In other words, she is “proud” not to have actually done something, but merely to have encouraged others to talk, at public expense, on a subject with a possible outcome of someone else having to deal with the thing well after she has gone.
James Gordon
London
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