All decency within our democracy has perished

I believe the majority of Conservative voters are of the older generation. I wonder how they feel knowing that the man, who was a hero to many of them, supposedly thought they should be allowed to get Covid because they would “die anyway soon”.

Dominic Cummings masterminded the election of Boris Johnson and yet his opinion of the former prime minister and his government was rock bottom – so what’s his explanation?

If this ghastly government does not have the grace to resign after these revelations, then all decency within our democracy has perished. It doesn’t matter that there is now a different prime minister in post. The utter, shameful shambles extend throughout the whole lot of them. The British public has had enough of cringing as the world watches our latest shame at the hands of the Tories. Please, please go!

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

The Covid inquiry is only exposing what has been out there for some time, we had all the information we needed about Boris Johnson from the start.

Yet he managed to seduce the country and was allowed to do so by a cynical parliamentary party. We cannot wait for the next lying populist to come along, supported by the right-wing media. It is time for a commitment to some form of proportional representation. Otherwise, Nigel Farage may be licking his lips at the prospect of a Tory wipeout.

Nicholas Mitchell

Hurstpierpoint

Back in 2016 some of us laughed at the prospect of the UK being led by Boris Johnson and the US by Donald Trump – both seemed so unlikely. However, both unfortunate eventualities came to pass.

The Covid inquiry has now revealed just how bad Johnson’s leadership was. He was both idle and incompetent, self-serving and callous. But at least we, in the UK, are free of him now that he has left politics and taken his “talents" to GB News. But the danger of Trump is not safely over for the US. And for the world.

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire

In The Independent’s recent editorial, the paper concludes by stating that “we can already be quite clear on the one lesson that can be learnt immediately: that we must never let Boris Johnson near government again”.

While this is true, it should not distract from the fact that there was ample evidence long before the word Covid had been invented; pointing to Johnson’s very deep and dangerous character flaws.

Given that reality, there is a very important question to be addressed by the Conservatives: why, knowing his past behaviours, did the party still see fit to give him their support? Instead, they should have ensured he never got an opportunity to inflict such damage on the British public and, ultimately, the party’s own political reputation.

For anyone else (I suspect a growing number thanks to the Covid inquiry) who asks this same simple question, the obvious reply should ward them off ever trusting their vote to the Conservatives ever again.

David Curran

Middlesex

Is the Boris Johnson who used his newspaper column last week to denounce those marching in solidarity with Palestine as having no “moral clarity” the same Boris Johnson who as prime minister in 2020 saw the coronavirus as “nature’s way of dealing with old people”? The same Boris Johnson who wondered “why are we destroying the economy for people who will die anyway soon”?

Sasha Simic

London

Time was when someone with an appalling record like Boris Johnson would never have got past “base one” in public life. Yet one institution is largely responsible for the utter shambles this man has caused to our country, culture, and society, and that is the Conservative Party.

Remember this: a significant number of Tories still regard him as the “king across the water” and would gladly have him back, when you are asked to vote at the next general election.

David Smith

Taunton