Metro letters, May 19: Would you swim in Britain’s dirty waters? | UK News

■ Total sewage. I don’t welcome the water companies’ apologies, saying they ‘get it’ that people are angry. I ‘get’ that you don’t give a s*** about anything but profit. You’ve failed to do what you’re paid to do. It’s criminal incompetence. Pay for it yourselves.
Olsen, Twickenham

■ Tory MP Damian Green says attitudes around water have changed, stating he used to swim in sewage years ago as a child. Well, that would be a good grounding for the past 13 years…
T Deng, Sussex

■ So, the water companies are passing on the costs to us, the customers, to foot the bill? Why are they still paying bonuses and dividends to shareholders for failure? Unbelievable greed.
RN, Hertfordshire

■ Meghan Markle was in New York to receive a Woman of Vision award when she and Harry were subjected to a ‘near-catastrophic’ two-hour car chase through Manhattan (Metro, Thu). What kind of vision would that be, then? Not one for spotting heavy traffic.

It should have been Feargal Sharkey there getting the award for man of vision. He rightly highlights the incompetence and greed of the water companies. They are ‘sorry’ but they ‘get it’ – the money, that is. As Feargal once sang, ‘It’s gonna happen, happens all the time’.
Dec, Essex

■ I am concerned Sir Keir Starmer has announced that, if Labour wins the general election, he will allow house building on green-belt land, where it will ‘not spoil the beauty of the countryside’.

This means that a main target would be outer London’s green fields.
Building on green land would spoil the charm of suburbs and change the whole character of local areas.

The green-belt legislation was put in place for good reasons, including purifying air quality from harmful pollution, helping mental and physical health, and encouraging wildlife such as birds and butterflies, whose numbers are falling.
A Wills, Ruislip

■ I’m sick of politicians selling off green belt (until it’s all gone!) for power. We need nature, not its killers.
Denise Hyam, London

Is Suella Braverman too right wing?

■ In her keynote speech to the National Conservatism conference this month, home secretary Suella Braverman pitched herself as more right-wing than any of the speakers, many of whom were hoping to succeed Rishi Sunak as prime minister.

The conference was misnamed – it came from a US think tank, the same body behind the Republican Tea Party rallies.

Ms Braverman and others say she has every right to express her extreme views on immigration and her plans to stop it.

Considering her background (grew up in multicultural Wembley, north-west London, both parents emigrated here in the ’60s, mum from Mauritius and dad from Kenya) I find it bizarre she became a mouthpiece for a movement born from and funded by US white supremacists.

Ms Braverman claimed that multiculturalism doesn’t work. My country is living proof that it does work – the home secretary is living proof of it. Children of all sorts go to school together, live as neighbours and, for the most part, live in peace in many working-class city areas.

It looks to me as if Ms Braverman is serving the wrong master, which will no doubt become apparent come the next general election.
Judy Baldwinson, via email

Helping Ukraine shows the UK what to do in a real-war scenario

■ The gifting of weapons to Ukraine is not entirely altruistic. We and our other donor allies gain much worthwhile feedback about the performance of our own ordnance in a real-war scenario and of the credibility of the Russian threats.

For instance, it has already been comfortingly shown that Mr Putin’s new hypersonic missiles are not at all matching up to his boasts. Thus, it can be a fortuitous shop-window for our armaments industry, albeit one we would never have wished upon anybody.

We can be grateful that Mr Putin is shooting himself rather foolishly in the foot, while hoping that his aggression will swiftly and permanently cease.
Andrew, Sheffield

■ It’s no surprise 2.5million people are long-term ill off work (Metro, Wed). I’ve lived in five English-speaking countries and now London, where 90 per cent of locals are not friendly, think negatively and want to hide behind a smartphone. Healthy mind, healthy body, healthy life.
Jack, North London

Would you send a kiss to your doctor?

■ Good Morning Britain had a debate on whether people put a kiss after messages that included one viewer saying they put one in a message to their doctor.

I put a kiss underneath my order to the Dog And Duck pub in Linton, Cambridgeshire, for the weekly grocery run.

It’s a sign of affection I tell them. I sometimes blow them a kiss but some may say that’s too much. But I say spread the love and spread the magic.

Well done, Good Morning Britain, for a good light-hearted topic, and well done
Ben Shephard (left) for proudly showing us your lucky West Ham socks. He spread a lot of love for his team and it made co-host Kate Garraway smile, which makes us all smile.
Harry John, Linton

Could those who get on the hot and clammy central line and immediately close the window before getting off at the very next stop please stop being selfish idiots?!
Tom Red, East London

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