Boris Johnson’s dismissive comments on the fuel crisis are a new low

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Boris Johnson’s comments on the fuel crisis have gone down like a lead balloon in some quarters (AP)

On BBC Radio 4, I heard harrowing accounts from people struggling to get relatives to essential chemo appointments, struggling to get vulnerable children to hospital and struggling to provide essential care for others, because they could not buy petrol.

Boris Johnson has responded to the fuel crisis by saying: “I want to say first of all how much I sympathise with people who’ve been worried about their journeys, worried about whether they’ll be able to use their cars in the normal way to see their loved ones or whatever it is.”

Our PM seems to think the world is a giddy social whirl, but people aren’t wanting petrol to gallivant around seeing “their loved ones or whatever it is”. They are trying to keep people well and to save lives.

The dismissiveness of Johnson’s comment was a new low. He’s a very careless man with no regard for the harm he causes.

Beryl Wall

London

The government must be very pleased that so much blame for the petrol chaos is being put on panic buying, ie. the public, rather than where it belongs, squarely on them for their incompetence and lack of foresight and necessary planning.

I was low on petrol on Saturday so put £40 in my car that evening. Was that panic buying?  It’s possible I could have lasted until Monday but I was acting on the basis that I could not risk running out.

No doubt a large proportion of blame for the lack of lorry drivers can be apportioned to Brexit. However, Remainers should try not to blame Brexit voters, but instead turn their fire on this monumentally smug and incompetent government, specifically on those shameless individuals who lied through their teeth about the consequences of leaving the EU, to get the result they wanted regardless of the consequences.

If you have a good case, you don’t need to lie, and you don’t need to plaster one of your biggest lies on the side of a campaign bus.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

We’ve got crises building on crises, pleas and hollow gestures, but no practical action from the government. They’ll shift the blame on to anyone and anything, to avoid recognising their own incompetence.

Isn’t it about time the media and the nation began recognising that the Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of competence, and that the present bunch in particular simply aren’t up to the job!

Arthur Streatfield

Bath

Silencing opponents

At the Labour Party’s annual conference, Sir Keir Starmer has managed to pass reforms that shift the voting power away from the party’s membership and make it more difficult for MPs to enter a leadership contest.

Although such reforms may make his party easier to manage, could the prime minister-hopeful lose his credibility in tackling authoritarian regimes around the world, which, under the pretext of workable governance, bring in policies that aim to silence their opponents?

Bambos Charalambous

Manchester

Climate change and social justice

Grace Maddrell is right to emphasise the link between climate change and social justice. Gender equality, women empowerment, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability and human rights are inextricably linked.

Regrettably, those least responsible for global warming are suffering from the apocalyptic repercussions of droughts, famines, rising sea levels and the transmission of deadly diseases.

Eleanor Roosevelt said that human rights must begin in small places to have meaning anywhere. It is therefore mandatory that we advance the civil, economic and cultural rights of grassroots communities, especially for women in developing nations.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London