Starmer has done nothing to lift the stench of Westminster

At least Ms Gray hung on long enough to see her son Liam Conlon elected as an MP in July. Mr Conlon was yet another insider who “accepted two tickets to a Taylor Swift concert from the Premier League” (“Starmer repays £6,000 for gifts including Taylor Swift tickets”, The Herald, October 3). I wonder if Mr Conlon’s selection interview as a Labour candidate went like this: “Mr Conlon, is there anything you’d like to tell us before we start?”

“Yes, my mum’s Sue Gray.”

“Thank you Mr Conlon, we’re pleased to tell you you’ve been selected.”

Westminster stinks, and the stench shows no signs of abating under this "Labour" government.

Doug Maughan, Dunblane.

Is this the worst start ever?

I WONDER if any British Prime Minister has had a more catastrophic honeymoon period on winning a General Election than Sir Keir Starmer?

The resignation of Sue Gray, his chief of staff, comes after only 94 days in office, and further adds to his growing catalogue of miscalculations. This includes penalising pensioners with the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance, and demonstrating incredible greed through acquiring a staggering array of freebie gifts. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, "glass, china, and reputation are easily crack'd, and never well mended".

Liz Truss lasted only 49 days as PM, but it must be remembered that she had not just won a landslide election. Sir Keir has no such excuse. He has been handed one of the largest parliamentary majorities in history, and yet seemed to have entered office with no coherent plan, and we are now seeing voters on an unprecedently quick scale express buyers’ remorse.

Until the Truss débâcle, George Canning had held the highest office for the shortest time: just 119 days in 1827. But Canning insisted on being Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as PM and worked himself to death in short order.

Keir Starmer is also unique in his ability to spread doom and gloom, and I cannot recollect any former PM in modern history, given the mandate won, losing popularity so rapidly.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh.

Read more letters

• I thought Starmer would be a safe pair of hands. I was wrong
• Starmer blew his big chance to show himself to be a statesman

MP treated with contempt

PERHAPS I should visit Specsavers? I have searched the press for sight of Keir Starmer's letter of response to the excoriating resignation letter Rosie Duffield MP sent to him.

The Prime Minister has spoken ad nauseam of his insistence on public service and the requirement to act at all times within the accepted limits of public probity. Walter Bagehot long ago reminded us of the importance of the "dignified" parts of our constitutional arrangements. It has long been accepted practice that prime ministers respond with immediacy and dignity to letters of resignation. Has he sent one? I ask because I am blithely unaware of seeing it. I should have thought that any such would have provoked a widespread flutter of press interest.

Ms Duffield has been particularly badly served by a Prime Minister who has seemingly been all too often prepared to treat her with contempt for her apostasy around gender and other issues. Perhaps he has been too busy dealing with the succession crisis around his erstwhile chief of staff to trouble himself with the niceties and courtesies of political exchange. Ms Duffield deserved better.

My eyesight may be deficient but my nose alerts me to the pervasive smell of petulance and disregard for any hint of dissenting opinion.

Not a great look but hardly a surprise.

(Prof) Douglas Pitt, Newton Mearns.

Stand up for Scotland's regions

SIR Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, is to hold a meeting of the council of nations and regions of the UK, somewhere in Scotland ("Sir Keir Starmer to meet with mayors and devolved leaders, heraldscotland, October 5). First Minister John Swinney has confirmed he will be representing Scotland.

There is mention of some of the English regions who will be attending but there is no mention of which Scottish regions will be included. It is vital that Scotland’s diverse regions are not excluded from direct input at such an important meeting and have parity with their English counterparts. The Highland, Islands, Borders, Glasgow and Edinburgh City regions and others must be included.

In his remit of standing up for Scotland, I sincerely hope John Swinney has insisted on regional representation from Scotland. If not, he will have reduced previously-independent Scotland to equating with a region of England. After all, Scotland is a partner in the Union with England, not with a region of England.

Alan M Morris, Blanefield.

Keir Starmer has had a troubled start to his premiership (Image: PA)

We must stop arming Israel

DR Gerald Edwards (Letters, October 5) urges us not “to forget it was Hamas who started … this recent round of fighting”. We need to look much further back to get a balanced view of the conflict; back to before the creation of the State of Israel.

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War the League of Nations granted the British a mandate to administer Palestine and Trans-Jordan (now known as the West Bank). As early as 1944 the Stern Gang and other Zionist terrorists were killing to promote the establishment of a Jewish state. They murdered a British minister in Cairo that year. A month before the creation of Israel the terrorists attacked the village of Deir Yassin. According to a British report to the United Nations, “women and children were stripped, lined up, photographed, and then slaughtered by automatic firing and survivors have told of even more incredible bestialities”.

Seventy-six years later and much blood has been shed by both sides, but the fact remains that there is no Palestinian state. There is a State of Israel and that state is occupying territories that do not belong to it: the Golan Heights and the West Bank, where a blind eye is effectively turned to the killing of Palestinians and expropriation of their land by illegal settlers. In addition, the current Israeli government has indicated that it intends to retain control of Gaza by permanently occupying the land between it and Egypt, yet the USA and the UK are continuing to supply arms and even using their own armed forces to protect the aggressor. B’Tselem, the internationally respected Israeli human rights group, now accepts that Israel is an “apartheid state” and this year published a report on the country’s network of torture camps. I believe the current Israeli government presents the greatest threat to Jews worldwide since the Nazis; we should refuse to continue being complicit with it by allowing our taxes to support its atrocities.

There will be no peace in the region until the scales of power are levelled. By continuing to supply arms to Israel, the USA and its running dogs are facilitating the prolongation of the conflict and enabling the extremist Israeli government to continue its expansion. Israel needs to know that if it wishes to continue as a state it must negotiate the birth of a Palestinian state; this can only be achieved by refusing to carry on supplying Israel with arms to support its territorial expansion.

We, who are still British citizens, must make clear our refusal to fund the defence of an Israel that will not countenance a Palestinian state. If Westminster will not listen our only option to live with a clear conscience is to break free and establish an independent Scotland based on justice rather than subservience.

Peter Martin, Perth.

• IN the context of Middle-East conflict, for “Israel”, always read “USrael”. The two states are, after all, joined at the hip.

George Morton, Rosyth.

The young will need support

I NOTE your recent article outlining the severe trauma and distress caused to so many young people in Gaza and now in Lebanon and Israel ("UK doctors distressed by ‘surreal’ time in Gaza", The Herald, October 5).

The thousands of children and young people who have experienced ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) in Gaza and elsewhere will surely need (when peace comes, as it must) psychological and therapeutic help and support to try to reduce further further problems. It will need organisations like Unicef and others to offer help and support to these young people if we are to try to avoid trouble in the future.

Ron Lavalette, Ardrossan.