Take note Boris Johnson; our country needs leaders with tenacity – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE opinion piece from Stephen Naylor (The Yorkshire Post, August 28) expressed thoughts shared by many of us. He articulates perfectly the real need for urgent and clear leadership both locally and nationally.

His words captured exactly the right balance of fact and context. We seem to have rejected the need to focus on the accurate detail of things and engage our natural curiosity to question and challenge so many of today’s really important issues. We are happy to accept a barrage of bite-sized facts at face value and assume they must be true. Our ability to think for ourselves and make rational decisions is being seriously eroded.

The current situation has presented a set of problems no one could have envisaged or planned for but the more recent response has been underwhelming, to say the least.

Where are the leaders with the tenacity and determination to do the right thing for society as a whole? Current incumbents appear to lack gravitas and the heart to make brave decisions and communicate them to us promptly, clearly and effectively. Perhaps it is partly symptomatic of our insistence to over-complicate everything these days, that those who would make good leaders have simply lost the will.

There are countless examples of how many good, hard working and experienced people have tried to effect change for the good of wider society, only to be constantly knocked back by those who assume they know better. We must not allow people to lose heart and lose hope.

From: Peter Brown, Shadwell, Leeds.

BREXIT featured in the General Election but it was not as all-encompassing as Bill Tetlow suggests (The Yorkshire Post, August 29).

Many voted for whichever of the major party leaders they found least distasteful. They were unhappy with either choice.

You cannot blame Sir Keir Starmer – whose Brexit views were shared by far more Labour supporters than Jeremy Corbyn’s reticence – for that.

Sir Keir has proven to be a breath of fresh air – when compared against either Mr Corbyn or Boris Johnson.

It is too soon to predict the next general election outlook, but if Sir Keir is still standing then he might be a good choice for Prime Minister.

He will have been thoroughly tested as Opposition leader – and survived a further four years of right-wing press attempts to demonise him.

If denied rumours that Boris Johnson is standing down in the New Year – sparked by Dominic Cummings’ father-in-law – prove correct, then who among the current crop of disaster-prone Ministers could pose a serious challenge?

Many who voted Leave acknowledge what a terrible job of Brexit – along with everything else – this Government is doing. Starmer’s stance may be an asset at the next election.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

GENERALLY speaking, I have found it impossible to vote Labour. Their reliance on the unions for funding puts me off; that and the tendency to support strikes when negotiation would have been a better way to settle disputes. However with Boris Johnson’s multiple U-turns about the return to the office, and pupils going back to school, makes me begin to wonder if I should continue to support the Tories.

Added to that the new leader of the Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer, and his move to the centre of politics also gives me cause to consider my position.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson