The pandemic has shown that Britain is led by inexperienced managers

sir – The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed some fundamental decisionmaking weaknesses in the machinery of government in Britain.

As a former civil servant of nearly 30 years’ public service – in a technical specialism throughout – I see this as a consequence of the Modernising Government programme that started almost 20 years ago. Since then, the balance between trust and experience on one hand and process and scrutiny on the other has been damagingly shifted too far towards the latter.

It is not uncommon for almost the entire upper-management tier of executive agencies and nondepartmental public bodies to comprise very able people who have no practical experience in the area they oversee. They are, however, steeped in the language, beliefs and processes that underpin the current administrative system. Their mandate is to run an accountable business; this absorbs huge resources, inflates the number of senior management posts and distracts from doing the job.

Something as difficult to deal with as a pandemic requires a much greater reliance on experience at the top.

Neil Wellum

Bridgwater, Somerset

sir – The Government lurches from one blunder to another. Where is the charismatic leadership we voted for?

Covid-19 infections are bound to continue, as preventing transmission in a country of over 60 million people is an impossible task. The important criterion is the number of hospital cases with severe symptoms, which are now very few, and daily deaths, which rarely reach double figures. It’s time to ditch the fear-inducing “control the virus” mantra, remove the economically damaging regulations and allow us all to get our lives back.

The Government’s complete lack of direction – and (even worse) the failure to communicate a way back to normality – can only lead to a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson.

Alan Bilham

Tetbury, Gloucestershire sir – Fraser Nelson (Comment, August 21) writes that Tory backbenchers are running out of patience with the Prime Minister. To them he should add the vast majority of us who supported Boris Johnson in the Brexit campaign, his bid to lead the Conservative Party, and the general election.

We are at the end of our tethers. This Government seems unable to govern. It will soon be too late to repair the confidence required for the Tories to be re-elected.

Philip Hall

Petersfield, Hampshire

sir – Pompey the Great fell seriously ill at Naples in 50BC, after 30 years of success. Historians – and indeed his contemporaries – have asked whether he ever really recovered.

Two years later he was defeated for the first and last time at Pharsalus, and shortly afterwards murdered by men he had thought allies. The precedent will not be lost on the Prime Minister.

John Hamey

Norwich