You’re to blame for this disaster Boris, not us. Grow up, apologise and take responsibility

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First it was care workers to blame. A chief nurse gets removed from briefings for criticising the government. Then it’s the scientists to blame and they get told not to make political statements. They are being set up by Matt Hancock anyway who mentioned “following the science” seven times in a BBC interview this week. Now it’s our fault – or Bame people, according to the execrable Craig Whittaker. Let’s be clear, this is toxic psychopathology exemplified by denial, projection and displacement.

You’re to blame for these increases, Johnson – you and the rest of your inept, incompetent, thick (educated but not intelligent, there is a difference), socially lapsed government. Everything done too late, everything done as a knee-jerk reaction, and best characterised by your utterly childish, five-year-old catchphrases: hands, face, distance, dooby-doo, clap hands.

Grow up, take proper responsibility, apologise and stop being hypocrites. This is why nobody believes or respects you and you will all go down in history as the worst government ever.

Richard Kimble
Leeds

Half-truths

Integrity in politics needs to be restored, but the success of half-truths and evasions means it will not be done by the electorate. For reasons that I suspect lie in poor education, a lack of curiosity and instant media, voters do not seem to be willing to make the effort that is needed to hold politicians to account. They succumb to confident assertions that fit their preconceptions or wishful thinking.

Could a campaign backed by journalists to get every MP to sign-up to a charter that they will not accept half-truths and evasions have success? It needs to be non-partisan and led by individuals of high moral standing so an MP would find it hard to refuse to join. Once they are signed up to it then an independent body needs to ask them to join in challenging every clearly documented half-truth and evasion uttered by every politician and government spokesperson.

The government acts with the consent of parliament so those MPs voting for the government are complicit in any half-truth or evasion if they do not say otherwise. Could this give them the backbone to do so?

Jon Hawksley
London

U-turn confusion

I may have more faith in “following the science” if the scientists proposing it did not do complete U-turns, as in the case of Professor Graham Medley’s suggestion that we may have to close pubs so that we can reopen schools.

This is the same member of Sage who argued not for lockdown, but for seeking herd immunity as practised in Sweden. With the scientists contradicting themselves, is it any surprise that the rest of us are so confused?

Leo Thomas
Manchester

The mask of Boris

Please can someone explain to me why Boris Johnson has not been wearing a mask in many of the photos I’ve seen of him recently? We are being told to wear them. Also, is he exempt from the distancing rules, surely touching elbows doesn’t meet the requirements? Still, I expect he and Dominic Cummings are different to us.

Paul Sheldon
Address supplied

Secret thoughts of Obama and Cameron

I read John Rentoul’s thought-provoking column (1 August) about the secret thoughts of Barack Obama and David Cameron in regard to their ostentatious successors. Trump and Johnson are both mavericks with a keen liking to surround themselves with “yes” men and women. The very idea of postponing the presidential election is preposterous, but it seeds the idea into the minds of worried Republicans and their voters.

I wonder about David Cameron, whose complacency that the Remain vote was a “done deal” has led us down this dire path of torturous uncoupling and now strained talks with the EU. He and Obama must indeed shake their heads in bemusement, the latter being so often stymied by vested interests. But there is now hope with Joe Biden, who if canny with his choice of running mate could half Trump’s longed for tenure, which would issue a massive sigh of relief from the rest of the free world.

Obama and Cameron are probably pragmatic men who do not toss and turn every night, but roll with the dice and pray for better and less divisive times ahead. And amen to that, especially during a pandemic with a virus which has no regard for political affiliation.

Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Hospital admissions rise

While the government brings back lockdown measures in some parts of the country, I would ask if hospital admissions are going up? The government must expect the number of infections to go up as lockdown is released – if infected people are young and healthy what does it matter?

The true measure of whether lockdown should be reinstated can only be judged by hospital admissions and once they start creeping up, action must be taken.

Keith Jacques
Address supplied