Cheats want to mark their own homework

Last week’s botched vote by the

Government to change to rules to get Owen Paterson off a hook of his own making has pushed its vision of a Global Britain as a force for good in the world even further out of sight.

Congratulations to the MPs who voted against their own Government last week or absented themselves from the vote, and who expressed their views so strongly in Monday’s emergency debate.

But nothing the Prime Minister will say on the matter, and no successes he may have achieved at COP26, will persuade nations across the world that the UK is still a bastion of democracy.

The list of scandals under Johnson's leadership includes the illegal prorogation of parliament, breaking the Northern Irish Protocol, dishing out PPE contracts under a VIP route for friends of ministers and the source of funds to refurbish his Downing Street flat.

Corruption has become endemic, the rules ignored (Priti Patel, Dominic Cummings) or changed.

I am sad to ask, but who would really want to emulate democracy as practised in Britain?

RICHARD POAD

Cookham Dean