It strikes me you don’t really know how Covid works
■ Richard Horwel says ‘no harm was done’ with the lockdown-breaking No.10 party that prime minister Boris Johnson attended and that ‘no one died’ (MetroTalk, Thu). Actually, we don’t know that. That is the whole point of this virus. You spread it to someone else, who spreads it to someone else who dies. Some people are super-spreaders. Ignorance like this is why we had such a huge number of deaths in this country.
Annabel, Orpington
■ To Richard Horwel, at last someone speaks a little sense. Stop the Boris bashing, move on. What’s the difference between holding a pen or a glass? You are still working together day in, day out.
Yes, nurses and doctors did a fantastic job, but there’s no need to keep banging on about the workload. Is it not what they signed up for, helping others get better, whether it’s an illness, accident, disaster or pandemic?
Or would it be OK for soldiers to say, ‘This war’s a bit lively, I’m going to write in and say I’m under pressure!’?
Lay off Boris and think of the future. Despite all his bumbling, the economy is growing faster than anywhere in Europe. We showed them with vaccines, now let’s show them with recovery.
Leigh, Bromley
■ For someone who describes themselves as ‘not a big Boris fan’, Richard Horwel seems to find it quite easy to gloss over the negatives.
To say things ‘could have been worse’ is no reason to keep a PM in place and saying he has ‘pretty much’ gotten us through the pandemic isn’t good enough.
But, yes, things could have been quite a lot better. Billions in taxpayers’ money could have been saved by not throwing contracts at their unqualified buddies.
Lives could have been saved at the start of the pandemic if it wasn’t for weeks of indecision and dithering.
And as to the ‘pressure’ the staff at Downing Street were under, it was nothing compared to the pressure at hospitals – but I don’t think doctors and nurses were having parties every Friday.
Any good the government has done with the vaccine doesn’t excuse all the corruption, lying and self-preservation.
Johnson lacks the integrity to remain in power. He has to go.
Reece, London
■ If we are going to get rid of Johnson, it should be for things like rising unemployment, a failed economy, etc – not attending an office garden party with colleagues.
Chris, London
■ Johnson is the personification of Covid – no morals and a disease that is destroying our country, changing and adapting itself to avoid being eradicated.
Kev Hendry, Windsor
■ ‘We know he’s a cheat, a liar, totally incompetent and destroying the country but if he gets us elected that’s OK’ – our Conservative party.
Mick, West Midlands
■ When ‘partygate’ first broke, my first response was ‘so what?’ but subsequent discoveries suggested to me that Boris Johnson has to go. However, his main error of judgment has been in trusting the plethora of non-elected nonentities he has for advisers, some of whom clearly hate him.
My feeling now is that the Boris haters, whether they’re in government, advising government or in the media, may overplay their hand.
The British have a sense of fair play and Boris is being hounded. Of course, if you print this it may already be all over!
Simon Park, Caterham
■ Thanks to Terry (MetroTalk, Wed) for raising the issue of Tory morale in safe Conservative seats.
Conservatives locally are complacent because they believe Boris has weathered many such storms before. But this one is different, especially to those of us who lost friends and relatives during lockdown.
The image of Boris’s staff arranging illegal drunken parties while my mother (a war veteran) spent her last days alone in a hospital with nobody to speak to, confused about why she was being treated in this way, is too much to stomach. I will never forget this and I will never forgive.
William Jones, Sevenoaks
■ Boris claims he didn’t know the rules. When I was doing law studies at college, we were told that ignorance was no defence in law.
Peter, Wolverhampton
■ If it wasn’t a party, why were his wife and baby there in one photo? And if, as he said, no one told him, why didn’t he, seeing a group of people at a time he was advocating no gatherings, tell them to go home?
Leigh, via email