It’s all shrivelled buddleias and heavy rain clouds this week – muggy disappointment with summer’s failure to fulfil its spring promise, writes Will McCallum, Newington Green.

I have just returned from a blue skies holiday and landed with a bump. My front garden is a litter of rose petals and crisp packets, my back garden a messy playground of weeds that sting, the only foliage that seems to thrive beneath the canopy of King Henry’s Walk Community Garden behind my house.

I was lucky enough to see the New River’s terrapins twice this week. They were casually swimming breaststroke upstream, openly mocking my poolside memories of the week before. Escaped pets, or more likely released, they seem happy in this urban habitat merrily disrupting the ecosystem by munching on everything in their path. In 2010, 51 terrapins were found in a trawl of Clissold Park pond, with several further terrapin evacuations there since – all taken to a terrapin rescue centre. Unfortunately for the creatures they feed on, despite assumptions that it was too cold for them to breed in this country, they are now successfully hatching their eggs.

Despite inauspicious beginnings, the week was saved by the taste of towpath blackberries, mostly tart with a couple just on the turn to perfection. I arrived home with purple-stained hands – late summer is here.

It is right the police watchdog will investigate the sad death of Rashan Charles, writes Terry Wood, Manor Road, Stoke Newington.

However, before a rush to judgement and a blanket condemnation of our police, I would like to inform readers and Diane Abbott of the following.

I have been the victim of two violent street robberies in Stoke Newington.

Thanks to mobile phones, the police arrived in under 10 minutes to save me from further harm and chase the suspects – and I was very glad to see them.

The crisis in Venezuela ought to be a terrible warning of the consequences of electing an extreme socialist government, writes Christopher Sills, Dunsmure Road, Stamford Hill.

Extreme socialist policies have turned a wealthy country into a place where people do not have enough to eat.

The Labour Party is led by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonald and Diane Abbott who are extreme socialists.

They make Clem Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair look like right-wing Tories.

These people have praised the government of Venezuela in the past and at the time of writing have refused to condemn their latest anti-democratic actions.

To prevent Britain suffering a similar fate, members of the Labour Party must expel the three extremists from the Labour Party and put up moderate Labour candidates at the next general election in their place.

If Labour MPs and councilors refuse to act then they all deserve to be sacked at the next elections because they are supporting leaders who will impoverish the country.

Members of the Labour Party in Hackney have a special responsibility. They must act and not leave it to someone else. Ignoring the problem is not an option.

If they cannot persuade their colleagues to act, they should leave and form a new party or better still join the Conservatives.

If that results in four years of Conservative rule in Hackney, that would be a good thing, because it is now generally recognised that the three years that the Conservatives ruled Hackney Council from 1968 to 1971 changed Hackney for the better.

If you do not believe me ask the current residents of De Beauvoir and Mapledene, because if the Conservatives had not got control they would today be living in a large council estate.