Liz Truss has no mandate from voters - time for a General Election: Yorkshire Post Letters

Where is the Government’s mandate?

The British economy is currently in a very dangerous position. We have seen both the pound and the Stock Market plummet over the past weeks.

Both these are normally seen by investors foreign and domestic as major indicators of faith in the British economy and of confidence of places to invest.

When this current government was elected, the value of the pound stood at £1.31 to the US Dollar, it currently stands at £1.08 to the US Dollar. In June 2016 just before the Brexit vote. it was worth £1.49 to the US Dollar.

Therefore, the value of our money has dropped between a third and a quarter over the past few years. That is our money and is shrinking in what it can buy. To compound this the government has currently high borrowing.

The Truss Conservative government over the past week has borrowed massively more money. This money has been borrowed to fund tax cuts mainly for the wealthy. The energy companies, who have been making huge and largely unexpected profits, should be subject to a windfall tax but are not.

Our children and grandchildren will be shackled with debt for many years to come. This in addition to high property prices, and massive university fees. The Office for Budget Responsibility have not been allowed to publish their concerns about borrowing figures which should raise alarms.

Important environmental policies have been trashed, allowing fracking and opening up fossil fuel oil and gas wells in the North Sea which will do little to solve the energy problem. Only renewable and nuclear energy and insulation can provide clean energy security cheaply, with the bonus of providing skilled Green jobs.

So, we are landed with a Truss government borrowing to the hilt, with likely high interest rates and mortgages. As well as with this we see the NHS and public services crumbling around us.

This government does not have a mandate of the voters to govern. It must declare a General Election immediately.

Jas Olak, Vice Chair, Leeds for Europe, Roundhay, Leeds.

LABOUR and its leader had a successful party conference in Liverpool. But they still seem willing to gamble on a wishy-washy approach to Europe.

Or as former Yorkshire MEP and ex-leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party Richard Corbett, who’s President of Leeds for Europe, put it on social media: “Great speech by Keir Starmer with good realistic promises for Britain’s future – except one: ‘Make Brexit Work’ is simply not possible.”

Tory Brexit was undermining the economy and making the cost-of-living crisis worse even before new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous Mini-budget.

Yet Sir Keir still rules out rejoining the European Union – or even non-member Single Market and Customs Union trade access.

Investment plans outlined by him, and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, will take many years to come to fruition. Reversing Brexit would pay immediate economic dividends.

Both Labour and Conservatives are talking a lot about economic growth. But if the Office for Budget Responsibility’s estimate of a four per cent GDP drop due to Brexit is correct, they’ll need to find a lot of growth from elsewhere just to stand still. Reversing Brexit would be easier, quicker and more likely to be successful.