Reading your report, I find myself becoming ever more despondent at the inability of the UK to influence – let alone control – its own future (Why is the UK bailing out US CO2 supplier CF Fertilisers?, 22 September).

Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and other government incompetents bang on about “global Britain”, but this phrase is both meaningless and misleading. The reality is that the various current crises are caused by Britain selling its most valuable assets to the rest of the world: CF Fertilisers is American, four of the big six energy companies are foreign-owned and GlaxoSmithKline is under pressure because its main shareholder is a US investment management company. The list of foreign ownership is a long one that includes much of our manufacturing, energy and retail base.

When a country loses control of what goes on at home, the chances of having influence globally is nigh on impossible. No wonder John Crace points out that “on the other side of the Atlantic [Johnson] is pretty much a nobody” (Politics sketch, 22 September).
Alistair Wood
Oswestry, Shropshire

So a private company decides to hold the country to ransom and stop production of essential CO2. I must have missed the rightwing media’s response of moral outrage. Instead, the British taxpayer will bail out the company for the next three weeks and pay the costs of production. Whatever happened to the Tory mantra of “let the market decide”?
Gary Nethercott
Woodbridge, Suffolk