We can only hope that Sue Gray’s report will show the truth

Far from exonerating our dishonest prime minister, the fines given to his minions show how incompetent the Metropolitan Police was in its Partygate investigations.

It beggars belief that even after Cressida Dick left, it is still complicit in its incompetence and further proves that there is one rule for the PM and a different one for people lower down the ladder – especially when he was apparently the host on several occasions, and other party hosts have received fines totalling thousands of pounds. No wonder he carries that smug smile under the mop. One can only hope that Sue Gray’s report will show the truth and not be another whitewash. Events have proved that to be a member of the Conservative Party one must be invertebrate and conscience-free.

Mike Coomber

Sheerness

Lord Frost’s dismissal of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “ignorant” for warning the UK not to unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland protocol is seriously misplaced. With a US Congressional delegation descending on Belfast to learn about the impact of the protocol and Brexit on Northern Ireland, including relations with Great Britain, Ireland and the rest of the EU, the charge of ignorance might be better levelled against Frost and this government.

In its determination to reassert western strategic political and military unity against Russian expansionism, Washington will not want Anglo-Irish and EU-UK tensions to continue over breaching international treaties, or an unwillingness to compromise over cross-border trading obstacles.

Twice this century Anglo-American relations have been stretched to breaking point, in 1916-22 over Ireland and in 1956 over Suez. Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol need not become the third great divider.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire

Boris Johnson is so busy dodging the bullets he shot at his own foot he cannot lead, and he never wanted to govern. One must assume he thought being PM would be a sort of permanent game-show host position. Proroguing parliament as an early move should have been the clue, if one were needed, but since then it’s been clear he is forever shuffling two steps behind events; unnecessary, often catastrophic, events often result from his unwillingness to get a grip on reality.

Waiting for the police to tell him whether he was at a party or not, and then quite happily declaring situation sorted when he – with his expensive legal counsel (no doubt) managed to dodge a second fine while those much more junior took the hit – is simply more evidence of someone leading from the sidelines. He is an exultant, unaware voyeur to his own premiership, accidentally triggering political incendiaries wherever he goes.

Sadly – we are all now collateral damage.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

Andrew Woodcock rails against the names of ministerial posts in his Editor’s letter today, including the “minister for nothing” Jacob Rees-Mogg, as Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency (BOGEY).

But the title is revealing: opportunity is cited, not achievement, and efficiency is desired, not effectiveness. As a public servant for more than 40 years I have watched cut after cut in the name of efficiency, leading to a reduction in effective work, but lagging the cuts so that efficiency does seem to improve. But we have indeed become less effective – officers do the work once done by “administrative staff” at higher cost, and at the cost of “primary activity” but it seems efficient.

The logical end point is to cut spending (input) to zero. Any strategic outcome at all can be seen to be infinitely efficient. Which we know is nonsense. Despite this, we worship the efficient over the effective, at enormous cost!

Andy Wilson

North Somerset

May Bulman’s article on the appalling treatment of Glenda Caesar by the Department for Work and Pensions is another example of the tyrannical behaviour of so many civil service departments – the Home Office and Border Agency also spring to mind – towards the public they are supposed to serve but appear to enjoy harassing and bullying.

It is time that these departments were reminded that they are paid by, and are servants and not masters of we, the public, and act accordingly, rather than compete with each other to provide the most hostile environment for those they deal with. Unfortunately, with the current bunch of amoral, self-serving, out-of-touch politicians we have in charge I see little chance of that.

Mike Margetts

Kilsby

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If the chancellor wants to avoid the energy companies reducing investment if he were to impose a windfall tax all he has to do is to legally bind them to invest to the value of such a tax.

This would ensure that excess profits made by the energy companies do not go towards dividends for the shareholders, who would otherwise benefit from these “windfall profits”.

Also, why not adopt the same process with the water companies, whose disgraceful dumping of sewage is down to lack of investment while shareholders receive bumper dividends?

Dennis Baum

London