I am horrified at the appointment of the former prime minister David Cameron as foreign secretary. He demonstrably lacks two of the essential characteristics for that difficult role: skill as a negotiator and a realistic understanding of non-western parts of the world (David Cameron makes shock comeback in high-risk reshuffle, 13 November).
Had Mr Cameron been a skilled negotiator, it is highly probable that he would have won sufficient concessions from the EU, in particular on control of our borders, to achieve a remain vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Because he would not call Angela Merkel’s bluff and was incapable of threatening to lead the leave campaign, he came home empty-handed.
Had he had any real understanding of the Middle East, Britain would never have intervened to support the revolt against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Gaddafi led a brutal dictatorship. However, the alternative was not democracy and human rights but repeated bouts of civil war, a country carved into fiefdoms and various horrific Islamists groups energised.
In these difficult times, Cameron represents nothing more than complacency and conventional wisdom politely and pleasantly packaged. He will be a menace to our national security and to our wider national interest.
Otto Inglis
Crossgates, Fife
• Rishi Sunak has just appointed the 16th housing minister since 2010. In this time there have been 10 secretaries of state for education, 12 culture secretaries; nine secretaries of state for pensions, seven transport secretaries etc. And James Cleverly, the new home secretary, is in his seventh posting in less than five years, averaging just eight months in each role.
The mess that our country is in is partly caused by such turbulence in its leadership – so much chop and change, mostly to very little effect. No business, school or corner shop would, or could, be run in this way.
John Boaler
Calne, Wiltshire
• Rishi Sunak has informed the country that not even one out of 349 Conservative MPs possesses the necessary qualifications to be Britain’s foreign secretary. In so doing, he has inadvertently ordered the country to vote Labour at the next general election.
Sebastian Monblat
Surbiton, London
• I do not understand the surprise that some commentators have expressed regarding the appointment of David Cameron as foreign secretary. He has perfect credentials for a Tory minister: Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club. What more could anyone want? Proven competence, perhaps.
Chris Lakin
Lymm, Cheshire
• Good to see that Rishi Sunak has brought back his green agenda: recycling prime ministers.
Dr Ronnie Clyde
Tregarth, Gwynedd
• If David Cameron is the answer, I can’t even begin to fathom what the question might have been.
Fionnuala Walsh
Galway, Ireland
• The news concerning David Cameron has made everything crystal clear for me. The sole purpose of this government is to provide John Crace and Marina Hyde with copy.
Peter Holt
King’s Lynn, Norfolk
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