It’s time the Conservatives expelled the class clown

It appears that his time spent at Oxford as a member of the infamous Bullingdon Club, rampaging like a drunken privileged hooligan over the Oxfordshire countryside, has wiped away any true intelligence and rationality from Boris Johnson’s brain.

I am deeply troubled and dismayed at his recent statement saying President Vladimir Putin would “use the World Cup like Hitler’s Olympics”. To invoke such a grievous comparison shows a complete disregard for the historic tragedy that Russia suffered during the Second World War, with the sacrifice of many millions of their citizens in fighting Nazi Germany.

I do hope that sane people will see through Boris Johnson’s loose verbal buffoonery, and that he will be severely censured by his own party (doubtful), by the opposition and the citizens of Great Britain. Viewing from Sydney, I observe sadly the collapse of reason and diplomacy displayed over this escalating issue.

Rosemary Collins New South Wales

I watched on PMQs the other day as the cameras focused on Boris Johnson ruffling his tonsorial monstrosity to try to live up to his reputation as a scatty but competent minister.

His action of yesterday, comparing Russia with the hideous Nazi regime of the Thirties, is, I believe, about as low as you can go. The man comes across as a buffoon and yesterday he proved it. No more hair ruffling, no more acting the fool. You have convinced us Boris. Your incompetence knows no bounds.

Only one step left for the PM – dismiss him to avoid any more embarrassment to our country.

DR Higgins Somerset

With reference to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s latest statements, could it be that he has been listening to President Trump and has decided there are lessons to be learned?

Martha Patrick Address supplied

When a politician uses “like Hitler” as an analogy, an issue has been blown out proportion.

Mike Bor, MA in Holocaust studies London

After a farcical review, the Government must compensate disabled people

I think most readers knew exactly what the outcome would be at the very beginning of the review into disability benefits. It was only ever designed to save money and to this end it has penalised some of the most vulnerable members of society. Since the beginning the incompetence, excuses and delays have been monumental, causing more than one court case with others to come I dare say.

Now we are told that possibly 70,000 people have been underpaid, therefore triggering another review which will no doubt take years!

I would conjecture that this is the biggest disgrace of this severely discredited administration. It has cost the taxpayer more than the savings we were told would be forthcoming and the harm to the claimants is almost incalculable.

Iain Duncan Smith and others should be ashamed of themselves.

Robert Boston Kingshill

Israeli justice

Your two almost side by side reports on violence in Israel show the problem.

“Israeli soldier who shot dead wounded Palestinian has prison sentence cut by a third”, online, Monday.

“Ahed Tamimi: Palestinian teenager who slapped Israeli soldiers sentenced to eight months in prison under plea bargain”, online, Wednesday.

Such is the undoubted equality of Israeli justice.

John Harvey Bristol

What we all have to accept about Easter eggs

I know lots of people don’t get it. Some of my neighbours don’t get it. The man I met on a train who voted Brexit didn’t get it. Even May didn’t get it when she announced a 300-year timescale for sorting it out, but I would at least have expected The Independent to have got it, especially as they’ve printed umpteen letters from me on the subject

I’m referring, of course, to the lengthy review of luxury Easter eggs (“Eggs-travagant”, The Magazine, 17 March). Amongst the enticing descriptions of “royal icing”, “delicate splashes of dark chocolate”, and “a pleasingly crunchy finish”, there wasn’t a mention of the packaging-to-chocolate weight ratio, nor how much useless plastic will go in the bin once the grandchildren have stuffed their little faces. Come on, Indy, keep up!

Patrick Cosgrove Shropshire

The homeopathic solution

I was interested to read that the medical approach to lower back pain is making the condition worse for millions of people (“Common lower back pain treatments make it worse, not better, warn doctors”). Like

most people, my back aches sometimes, and when it does I rub in some homeopathic rhus tox cream. Soon the ache has completely gone. And yet the medical profession and the pharmaceutical companies continually tell us they know best and homeopathy is rubbish.

I shall happily continue with the rubbish treatment for this and many other things – because it works, it is benign, has no side effects and has not been developed on the back of the dreadful suffering of millions of animals in vivisection laboratories.

I am sorry others are put off from benefiting from the curative properties of homeopathy by smart alecs insisting it doesn’t work just because they can’t explain how it does.

Penny Little Great Haseley

How is anyone surprised about Facebook harvesting people’s data?

Appalling (and sleazy) as Cambridge Analytica’s behaviour is – or was – I am puzzled by the hysteria over Facebook.

Not being a teenager or someone who thinks food needs to be photographed for posterity before it can be digested, I have never had a Facebook account. However, even a Luddite like me finds it odd that anyone using Facebook thought their data was not being harvested. Exposing the guts of your life online and expecting that a free-to-use platform is not gleaning something is like eating burgers six times a day and being surprised you get fat or smoking and being surprised that you end up with lung cancer.

How lovely it would be if the same politicians who are on the current “slam social media” bandwagon had shifted themselves over the decades while the public was being fed bilge by the gutter press – paving the way for, among other things, Brexit.

Amanda Baker Edinburgh

The legitimacy of the Brexit vote

In light of revelations about how Cambridge Analytica has influenced elections, I have written to the Electoral Commission to question the legitimacy of the EU referendum, asking what criteria they use to deem an election illegitimate and what steps they would then take if the referendum was considered as such.

The more we learn about the highly dubious and possibly downright illegal ways in which the Leave campaign manipulated voters, the less and less robust the result of the EU referendum appears. Unlike in the US, the investigations into electoral tampering in the UK are taking place behind closed doors. We need the Electoral Commission to tell us what they know and make clear to the British public at what point interference in an election or referendum makes a result illegitimate.

Leaving the EU represents the greatest political, social and economic upheaval this country has faced in my lifetime. If it is found that there was significant manipulation during the referendum campaign we must raise questions about what radical steps should be taken. For Greens it further underlines the need for a people’s poll on the final Brexit deal; and this time, such a referendum must be based on accurate facts, not deliberate misinformation peddled by specialists in voter manipulation. This poll must of course include the option of remaining in the EU.

Molly Scott Cato MEP, Green Party speaker on Brexit Brussels, Belgium