FULL disclosure, I like air travel – however, I haven’t flown since 2020, when we arrived back in the UK on March 19, just four days before the Covid lockdown began. At the time, I didn’t consider myself a frequent flyer – once or twice per year at most – but now I am reconsidering mine and my family’s contribution.

I read reports that it will take 26 years for low earners, the bottom 10% of earners, to create the same level of CO2 that the 1% of high earners create in one year. Yes, read that again ... 26 years to create the same amount of CO2 as the top 1% of earners in the UK.

The data that this information is based upon stops in 2018, just before the travel shocks that resulted from Covid.

Getting back to normal (aka pre-Covid) doesn’t seem to make sense.

Frequent flyers used to get incentives – we now need to consider reversing these incentives. The top 1% may just put up with these increases as a “cost of doing business”, however, calling these out into visible tax returns, as they did for car mileage as “benefit in kind”, will mean that businesses and employees will need to consider their personal contributions to climate change. Private jet take-off and landing charges can also be targeted.

The chattering classes, me and the rest of your readership, are in debate about Rishi Sunak and whether he should stay or go and fly off to COP27 in Egypt. Statements like “... hundreds of politicians flying off to a jamboree and having 10-course dinners ...” are a waste of time, and simply add to the CO2 pollution that will last for 100 years in our atmosphere.

Climate change deniers use the “we are just small contributors, why should we care?” argument to propose we as a country do nothing and reverse green initiatives, and their “eye-watering costs”.

I agree we are small contributors in terms of CO2 contributions to the big issue.

However, Scotland and the UK are world “influencers” who punch significantly above our weight. People and countries respect Scotland’s view on this – and yes, the UK’s also.

Might I remind readers that we started the Industrial Revolution?

I totally accept that at the time, we did not know fully what we were doing by increasing the CO2 level. Since then, we have found out and have known for many decades, despite the erroneous statements being made.

There is a moral view that since we created an industrial base by extracting raw materials from nations that did not have the technological skills to utilise the material into a saleable item, we did.

Since the 1980s, we offshored the majority of our manufacturing industry, and now import them to the UK, using container ships, pumping out CO2 from “dirty” diesel-fuelled ships, to import the things we need to purchase.

The cost and impact of the travel and the gargantuan dinners is far outweighed by the influence they can apply in the closed sessions and the “water-cooler” conversations.

So should Nicola and Rishi go? Yes is my view – maybe not on the same plane, however.

Alistair Ballantyne

Birkhill, Angus

The security of Britain is overseen by the Home Secretary. The minister is responsible for keeping everyone in the country safe.

The controversial new Home Secretary “Suella” Braverman has been previously probed for leaks. Oddly, she prefers to use a childhood nickname, her legal first name is Sue-Ellen – she was named after American Dallas soap opera character Sue-Ellen Ewing! However, in Westminster, she has gained the less salubrious nickname of “Leaky Sue”.

Tory party chairman Nadhim Zahawi does not deny that “multiple breaches” of the ministerial code were made by Sue-Ellen Braverman.

Yet she is now entrusted with overseeing the work of the nation’s security services.

This is one of the most sensitive jobs in government, responsible for signing off surveillance warrants and other highly classified spy agency functions, as well as the national counter-terrorism strategy and implementation.

Can we feel secure with Leaky Sue in charge of our security? Liz Truss’s mobile was also apparently hacked by the Russian intelligence agency.

With Leaky Sue using her personal mobile as well as a government mobile for sending classified material, the Government is wide open to infiltration.

Rishi Sunak has said his “government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.”

Sue-Ellen Braverman seems intent on challenging this statement, firstly for integrity and accountability with her careless use of her own mobile, but especially for professionalism, with her record in the worsening conditions at the migrant processing in Manston in Kent. In the overcrowded centre, there have been outbreaks of diphtheria, of scabies and MRSA.

Previous Conservative home secretaries Priti Patel and Grant Shapps have declared unequivocally that they had acted to ensure such overcrowding conditions did not happen in a facility designed to be transitory – 48 hours at most.

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The question needs to be asked – is Braverman incompetent, uncaring or just engaged in posture politics to appeal to hard-right extremists? Such dangerous ploys resulted in the firebombing in Dover and the subsequent death of a right-wing extremist.

Can we afford to have such a self-serving rabble-rouser, still fighting for the Tory leadership, in such a sensitive position in government, especially when she is floundering on so many levels?

Surely there is a grown-up right-wing Conservative MP who can replace her? Or is competence and placing country and party above personal ambition so rare among Tory MPs?

Pete Milory

Trowbridge, Wiltshire