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

‘Letting humans suffer more than animals is cruel’

Mark (MetroTalk, Thu) argues against legalising assisted dying, saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Has Mark ever sat in a room for days while his loved one screams in agony, dying? When there’s nothing they can do until they choke to death, their lungs full with liquid? And the pain medications don’t work?

You would not let an animal go through that, so why let a human go through it?
Having had to sit and see this happen to my mum, I’m all for assisted dying because it is damn right cruel to let them die in so much pain! Gareth Smith, London

Why should MPs get to decide on assisted dying?

With the vote on the assisted dying bill coming up, I find it difficult to understand how the choice of releasing yourself from a potentially horrific and debilitating condition – and being faced with a long drawn out, painful death on a mental, physical, and emotional level for both the individual and their family – is a decision to be made by only 650 sitting MPs.

I appreciate Sir Keir Starmer has given them a free vote, but we, the electorate, voted for an MP who will serve/act for us.

With a population of 68million, based on 2023 figures, to have such a monumental decision made by just 0.0000095 per cent of the population is totally ridiculous.

The assisted dying bill needs to be put to the people. Paul Billson, Letchworth Garden City

Benefits for non-members of the EU? Not likely

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey says an EU ‘rebuild’ may be required after Brexit.

How they could do this without actually rejoining is beyond me.

One analogy is if a member of a social club left and stopped paying his subscriptions, he could not expect to still receive the benefits the remaining members have paid for (ie subsidised bingo tickets and coach trips etc).

If he did continue to receive these benefits, the other members would be furious and would not tolerate it.

That is similar to what is happening with the UK after Brexit – the remaining member countries would not tolerate us receiving member benefits from the EU for free and they would be perfectly entitled to vote against it! Carlos, Lancashire

‘Labour’s Net Zero Plans risk bankrupting the UK’

Labour wants us to be world leaders of so-called ‘clean’ energy.

China, meanwhile, wants to be world leader in coining in the cash regardless of the environmental damage it is causing the world with it being responsible for 35 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

It also wants to dominate in as many countries as possible.

And still Labour is on its mad and impossible anti-carbon crusade to bankrupt our whole economy.

‘Come on, lemmings of the world, and join us in jumping off this net zero cliff,’ they shout. Sir Keir, you will be the only one doing it – but all at our expense.

Your pathetic 33 per cent of the votes in July is no mandate. We need a re-run of the freak election now, please. There is huge buyer’s remorse. Dan Hartley, Solihull

Tattoos and inexperience spark Trump controversy

Why the shock at this appointment by Donald Trump of Fox News TV host Pete Hegseth as his US defence secretary (Metro, Thu)?

The objections are that he has no experience in government but there is no evidence that political experience has enabled governments to deal with the drastic world situation effectively.

Secondly, more horror, he sports tattoos! While I am no supporter of Trump and don’t care for tattoos, those personal opinions are hardly argument for dismissing his appointment to high office. Carolyn Manley, Hatfield

‘Trump follows Boris’s path to failure’

It was thought Boris Johnson had copied Trump. Now it’s Trump doing as Boris did when he got rid of the competent ministers and surrounded himself with incompetents so as not to be challenged.

And look how that destroyed the Conservative Party and the country. Mick, West Midlands

‘Trump’s promises won’t fool voters forever’

We elected our own ‘Poundland Trump’ in Boris Johnson but enough of us saw that all he’d delivered was deception and mismanagement and the next election went decidedly against his party.

Trump has equally over-promised and if the American people get to choose again in 2029, many will see through Trump’s lies when America doesn’t become as great as he told them it would. Judy Baldwinson, via email

‘But, Trump is putting his country first’

Chloe O (MetroTalk, Fri) says Trump intends to ‘insulate the US and put his country’s needs first, to the detriment of the rest of the world’.

Oh no, how awful to see the president of the US putting his citizens first. Maybe Sir Keir should put British citizens first, too, instead of treating us like cash cows. Richard, London