PM’s failings obvious for a long time

TO PARAPHRASE Boris’ hero, Winston Churchill: “Never in the history of UK politics has a prime minister caused so much political, economic and social damage to the UK as Boris Johnson”.

Yet despite his immoral behaviour and incompetence, like a cult hero, he can do no wrong.

Nevertheless, Gove stabbed him in the back because he believed Boris was unfit to be prime minister, staff at the Foreign Office claimed he failed to master detail and was regarded as unfit for the job and now his former close adviser, Cummings, also claims he is not fit for the role of prime minister.

Are they all wrong? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. After all, it was Boris who claimed credit for negotiating a fantastic trade deal.

Tell that, Boris, to the fishermen; tell it to the farmers; tell it to the students; tell it to the people of Northern Ireland and Gibraltar; tell it to the many small businesses struggling with bureaucracy; tell it to the service industry unable to replace the exodus of foreign workers, and tell it to the financial and banking sector.

Having run many leadership courses in the private and public sectors, I learned one very important lesson: expert advisers and competent team members make successful leaders and vice versa. In my opinion, team Boris lacked both during the Brexit campaign and the early days of the pandemic and will spend the next few years playing the blame game and trying to rewrite history.

Bryan D Prescott Caerphilly