Do we really want Boris Johnson still running the country?

In the lead editorial on Mon 18 July, you complain yet again about the prime minister being absent from duty during the emergency heat spike: “Boris Johnson has proved once again that very little matters to him, and nothing matters very much”.

I would have thought that keeping him away from any crisis is exactly what we all wished for. Let Mr Bumble roll around here, there and everywhere, including the rolling countryside around Chequers, just keep him away from No 10 Downing Street as best we can. We cannot have it all ways.

William Campbell

Horsham

We have the first ever red heatwave warning and he doesn’t turn up to the COBRA meeting.  We have sustained double digit inflation and covid infection rates are nudging 6 per cent. Where’s Boris? At another party?

He may have said he’ll resign, but he chose to stay on as prime minister. We need someone who wants to do the job and not just have the job. He needs to get back in the saddle or quit right now so we have a functioning government during these crises. September’s too many hot, sick and costly days away.

Ian Henderson

Norwich

I was glad that your editorial talked about the real reason we are having extreme heat in Britain – climate change. It’s disheartening that much of the media talks about it and how to keep cool but doesn’t use the opportunity to bring home the reality of climate change and the increased urgency. It’s true when we are used to pathetic, drab summers we pray “for a good summer for a change” but forget why we have a “good” summer this year.

Isn’t it also ironic that Britons are told to stay home, avoid travel?  Sure people here are not used to it but millions in poor countries don’t have a choice and have to toil in even hotter temperatures outside with little respite just to earn £2 a week if they are lucky. Maybe we should try imagining life in their shoes because they are the biggest losers with climate change if the world doesn’t get serious faster than the promises made at COP26. Yeah, not happening.

SJB

Address withheld

This Wednesday (20 July) the East Sussex Pension Fund – the local government pension scheme covering Brighton & Hove as well as East Sussex – will vote on whether to stop investing in fossil fuels.

Bexhill Town Council, Brighton & Hove City Council, Hastings Borough Council, Lewes District Council, Lewes Town Council, Peacehaven Town Council, UNISON, Maria Caulfield MP (Cons, Lewes) and Caroline Lucas MP (Green, Brighton Pavilion) have all called on the fund to divest – something that it has repeatedly refused to do.

On Monday 18 July we began a 60-hour fast to demand that the fund stop investing in the companies that are driving the climate crisis.

With the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects – projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts – there is no time for further delay.

Gabriel Carlyle, Hugh Dunkerly, Kristin Sjovorr,

Brighton

Your correspondent James Moore is quite right to highlight the risk of a “winter of illness and poor productivity”, due to government ministers and hopefuls remaining in denial that the pandemic is ongoing, both here and overseas!

“Individual responsibility” will have minimal impact on something that can only be controlled through good public health measures collectively. It is now quite clear that relying on vaccination alone, and even leaning guilt on the unvaccinated (not all their fault), will achieve nothing significant, beyond sore arms.

We need to demonstrate collective responsibility through public health measures at the home front, and through sharing vaccines with the whole world – or risk return of worse variants from other countries we did not help.

David Church

Wales

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I am rather surprised that Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have refused to take part in the third leadership contest debate. Surely they should now both be eliminated from the competition? After all, there are still three other candidates, all of whom have completed, or are willing to complete ALL the tests set.

The voters deserve candidates who are prepared to do all that is necessary to save this country, not faint hearted ones who refuse to do the hard yards. We have suffered enough from part-time politicians!

Ian McNicholas

Ebbw Vale