Do MPs deserve a huge pay rise? This reader certainly thinks so | UK News

Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.

Rolf (MetroTalk, Mon) holds that Sir Keir Starmer is right to put ‘clear blue water’ between the mainstream Labor Party and those he calls the ‘Corbynites’.

As a leader elected after a promise to respect the left of the party, and following affirmations of his personal loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn, the ‘clear blue water’ that Starmer has created is that separating him from the pretence of integrity.

About all that can be said in that part of his life is that he is more honest than Donald Trump and possibly Boris Johnson – hardly the level of integrity needed for high office. River, Manchester

Rolf says Corbyn and his ‘cohorts’ were ‘rejected by the country’ and that ‘Starmer did rather better’. Corbyn’s Labor Party got more of the popular vote – the actual number of votes – in 2017 and 2019 than Starmer did in 2024.

Indeed, the composition of the Commons after the last election shows the case for proportional representation, under which Starmer would have presumably had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and possibly the Greens. Mark Taha, London

What’s changed?

‘Change’ must be more than just a clever Labor Party soundbite.

The status quo has come about because our mainstream parties and those who vote for them have bought into a system of global competitiveness as a way of creating wealth for ‘all’.

Britain is rolling in money but it has been unfairly distributed. This is the real ‘change’ Labor needs to address. Jack Fraser, Musselburgh

As an NHS worker, I cannot accept a gift above £50 from a person whose life I’ve just saved, but it’s OK for a politician who will be involved in loads of business and making decisions that will affect millions? Antonio, London

‘I don’t get pension credit – am I really better off?’

I would like to point out that the poorest pensioners (those on pension credit) are often better-off than people like me who have a small private pension that takes them just over the pension credit limit.

Out of £1,100 a month, I have to pay my rent, council tax and bills, leaving me very little to live on. If I was on pension credit, I would get my rent via housing benefit and wouldn’t have to pay council tax.

Now it seems there’s a strong chance of the single-occuppier council tax discount being away, which will cause even more financial hardship taken. To be honest, I won’t be able to afford it. As for heating my home adequately, there’s no chance.

Having had to work for an additional six years, despite myriad health problems, I now have a bleak and very frugal retirement to look forward to. Fiona Cockell, via email

Obese Brits abroad are the reason the NHS have an obesity crisis

I have just returned from a week’s all-inclusive holiday at a decent resort in
Playa Blanca, Lanzarote. Nearly all of the clientele were British of some sort.

We were appalled at the number of obese, disgustingly obese and morbidly obese people present – ​​don’t some of these people look at themselves and realize just how awful they look?

And another thing we noticed – the amount of food wasted by greedy people regularly taking too much and then leaving half of it on their plates.

No wonder we have an NHS obesity crisis in this country. Peter Meyers, Bromley

Pub closures, failure to stop e-scooters and another day of knife crime

I was saddened to read that the huge number of pub closures shows no sign of abating (Metro, Mon).

As the writer Hilaire Belloc said more than 100 years ago – perhaps prophetically: ‘When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.’ Teresa, Bromley

Further to the crackdown on illegally modified e-bikes (MetroTalk, Wed), most police officers don’t know what makes an e-bike legal – I’ve asked a few.

What we really need is a law banning e-scooters. How does Halfords sell them? They’re not even legal unless on private land. Overall, though, bikes/e-bikes are the least dangerous form of transportation.

Petrol motorbikes kill far more pedestrians each year and cars, Lord knows how many more – but there is still no eye test for people over 70 renewing their car or motorbike driving license. Peter Goodman, Farnham

Another day, another sad knife crime in London (Metro, Wed). And another day Sadiq Khan is missing in action.

Unless it involves a photoshoot or hitting motorists in the pocket, you won’t see the mayor of London. He is a joke. Gary, Essex

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