The Downing Street infighting is disgraceful at a time of emergency

sir – The disgraceful infighting within No 10, and within the Tory party, at a time of national emergency, illustrates most clearly a lack of leadership.

The Prime Minister and other senior people in Government would be well advised to read Serve to Lead, the British Army’s leadership manual, and to put its lessons into practice.

Come the next election, the party will be consigned to opposition unless this brawling stops right now.

Peter Munro

Stoke Trister, Somerset

sir – In recent weeks I have seen Boris Johnson dressed as a warehouse operative, a construction worker and a laboratory assistant. Does he, I wonder, have a prime minister’s outfit? Charles Dixon

Hastings, East Sussex

sir – Exactly what role does Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson’s fiancée, play in the governance of Britain?

Gordon Casely

Crathes, Kincardineshire sir – Martyn Pitt (Letters, November 9) asks: “Who is running the country?” I think we know who isn’t.

David Saunders

Sidmouth, Devon

sir – Who is running the country? Parliament (rarely), the Prime Minister (erratically), Dominic Cummings (unaccountably), Michael Gove (surreptitiously), Rishi Sunak ( generously), Carrie Symonds (probably).

Norman Fox

Needham Market, Suffolk

sir – First it’s military bearskin hats, then importing fur, then wind power, then pheasant shoots, and now who advises the Prime Minister. If Cabinet ministers have to go through Carrie Symonds to speak to him, it is wrong. Mary Wiedman

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

sir – Neither Lee Cain nor Dominic Cummings are Conservatives. The Tories leading the coup against them have forgotten who won both the referendum and the general election.

Boris Johnson acknowledged that many who voted Conservative in the Red Wall seats did so with difficulty, but he promised to deliver for them, to listen to their voices for once, to acknowledge that the opinion of the poor isn’t a poor opinion.

The people who voted the Conservative Government into power were not Conservatives. The Prime Minister needs to remember that, particularly in the deal he negotiates with the EU, in sorting out his own office to reflect the wishes of the people, and in “building back better”.

Too many Tories are talking about protecting their own base in future tax policies. The Midlands and North deserve better, and so does democracy. Keith Punshon

Thirsk, North Yorkshire

sir – Someone was in charge of communications?

Alan France

Marlow, Buckinghamshire