Johnson and Cummings want to defy democracy – where is the outrage?

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I hope Andrew Grice is right, but where is the public and media outcry against the political and democratic outrage that Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson want to commit? It seems to have gone very quiet, which is a worry.

Referendums are not bad per se but they can be misused by dictators and manipulators. Cameron was a manipulator, albeit a poor one: he tried to manipulate the Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party to shut them up. His plan backfired through his self-delusion and political arrogance.

We are left with a would-be dictator, the unelected Johnson, driven on by an unelected bully, Cummings. One can only hope that a lot more is going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. However, vociferous challenges to this outrage in the public domain would give more power to the elbows of those with the ability to do something about it. Let’s hear it from everybody who cares about the country we live in and the sovereignty of our parliamentary democracy.

Darryl Pratt
Leamington Spa

Excuse my cynicism, but are Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings trying to destroy our nation in order to rebuild it however they like? Otherwise, how do we explain this madness?

Sarah Pegg
Seaford

A bit of credit for Corbyn?

Tom Peck sums up Boris Johnson to perfection. Johnson is a blustering, hammy con artist who actually seems bored with his own schtick, but his contempt for the public allows him to continue with it at full throttle, promising largesse to all and sundry – as if he hadn’t been part of a government that has ruthlessly starved the very same people of funding for years.

Thanks to that tiny number of deluded Conservative diehards who were allowed to vote, we are all stuck with this national embarrassment. What a farce.

Would it be too much to ask for some credit to be given now to Jeremy Corbyn for showing a contrasting intelligence and gravitas in the face of this dangerous prime minister, by trying to stop him forcing through a no-deal Brexit before the country has a chance to express its disgust/frustration/fury in a general election?

Penny Little
Great Haseley

Boris the hypocrite

It’s inconceivable that PM Johnson would plot to bypass parliament to push through a no deal.

As he stated, Gordon Brown was “trampling on the will of the British people”, taking over from Mr Blair in 2007 without a general election: “It’s the arrogance. It’s the contempt ... It’s at moments like this that I think the political world has gone mad, and I am alone in detecting the gigantic fraud.”

One empathises.

Mike Bor
London W2

Veganism is our only hope

The United Nations urging everyone to eat less meat is a mantra we have been hearing for a long time. It is designed to keep the meat industry happy and to placate the climate lobby. The stark reality though is that we are beyond the point of patching up the planet with half measures.

Around 75 billion animals are raised for meat; between 200 billion to one trillion fish are killed annually for human consumption. The message that needs to go out urgently is that mankind needs to return to a plant based diet if we are to avoid a catastrophe which will make this planet unhabitable for future generations. The vegan revolution going on at the moment is a ray of hope.

There are ethical reasons that we need to consider too. As a supposedly superior species do we need to carry out so much violence on the animal kingdom? Meat consumption and the resultant health crisis we are facing is well documented. It seems that for our overall wellbeing and to reinvigorate our planet will have to face the facts and be honest. There is no other solution for our dilemma except to eschew all animal products.

Nitin Mehta
Croydon

Revoke Article 50, or go deep into recession? These are our options

In the light of the respect for truth becoming subordinate to self-interest, it is difficult to know the difference between right and wrong. Notwithstanding this dilemma what follows is what I believe to be correct.

The referendum campaign for Leave was conducted in part by liars and charlatans, who duped millions into believing their self-absorbed falsehoods; while that of Remain was nonexistent. Those who still wish to take the UK out of the EU have an approach which is naive and infantile at best, and aggressively rude and xenophobic at worst; while the pro-EU supporters may be considered reserved and diplomatic at best, and appallingly complacent and pathetically weak at worst.

Britain’s current wealth and prosperity is in no small part due to membership of the EU. Leaving now, with or without a deal, is both senseless and destructive.

The evidence showing the negativity of leaving includes: a rapidly weakening pound; a massive drop in inward investment; substantial sectors of industry and finance preparing to leave the UK; a growing lack of confidence in the UK politically and diplomatically; and a shrinking economy caused not by a global recession but by selfish determination.

In 1964 the Australian ambassador to Belgium wrote to my father in support of his efforts to persuade the UK to join the common market, saying that in continued isolation the country would decline economically and become both acolyte and dumping ground for United States foreign policy and products; nothing has changed.

Those responsible for the impending self-imposed recession have proven unsuitability, bordering on incompetence, in national and global politics. Some delight in infantile xenophobia; others are severely geographically and diplomatically challenged; and, most disturbingly, there are those who have complete disinterest in what is best for the country, and are openly using their positions or links to profit extensively from the disaster.

There are only two paths for the UK now, both clearly signposted: revoke Article 50 and remain an active and profitable part of the biggest global trading bloc; or go consciously and willingly into deep recession in isolation, from which recovery will take many decades, if it happens at all.

Matt Minshall​​
Norfolk