Boris Johnson has not changed – he’s still putting parties before duty

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

No one should be shocked that one of his final acts as prime minister is prioritising a party at Chequers (PA)

It should come as no surprise that the man who said he’d lie down on the Heathrow runway to prevent its expansion then disappeared for the vote, actually meant he’d lie down on the job – or he’d just lie.

Boris Johnson has not changed. He is still the person he always showed himself to be. No one should be shocked that one of his final acts as prime minister is prioritising a party at Chequers and absenteeism from a Cobra meeting set up to discuss possible heat-related deaths.

This is literally where we came in.

At the start of the pandemic, Johnson was Awol from five crucial Covid Cobra meetings.  When will we ever learn?

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

No say at all

I refer to yesterday’s editorial “The public have a crucial part to play in the Tory leadership election”. The Tory party are not only selecting their leader. They are, rather more importantly, selecting our prime minister.

The voting public are well aware of what the Tory party stands for and by implication the priorities of its candidates in this internal selection process. We have suffered its consequences for many years.

We are told that: “It is only by opinion polls and social media commentary after these debates that the public can have any say at all.” But how reliable are opinion polls? How influential are social-media commentaries?

If that is all our democracy has to offer in this process of selection of a prime minister there is something badly wrong with our political system. To use a well-worn Tory sound bite, it is “broken” and probably well beyond repair.

The public has no say at all.

David Nelmes

Newport

Charming and colourful

Unlike Amanda Whiting, I enjoyed Netflix’s Persuasion. Perhaps because I realised five minutes in that I was watching Bridgerton the Movie.

As with Bridgerton, you have to put aside all worries about anachronistic language and behaviour. Unlike Bridgerton, you also have to abandon any hope of staying true to a revered original.

I can see how difficult this would be for devotees. But I enjoyed it as a colourful, colour-blind, amusing rom-com with a charming central performance from Dakota Johnson.

David Palmer

Address supplied

Where have all the butterflies gone?

The national Big Butterfly Count was yesterday. I saw one cabbage white.

Is anyone else feeling genuine alarm at the total lack of butterflies and bees now? I remember only five or so years ago seeing many on the large buddleia I had, as well as on their other favourites like sedum and comfrey. It is genuinely quite disturbing.

Lynn Brymer

Ashford, Kent

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Private schools

I read with interest the research that examines how private schools function, given I spent nearly two decades working in them.

The bottom line for all of them is to survive, which means they run them like a business. Some are so successful they have branches abroad and some less so, and have decided to pull out of the teachers’ pension scheme for a more inferior scheme.

If we want, as a country, to hold them accountable for their charity status and benefits, then the governing bodies of these schools should be required by law to have members who ensure this accountability.

Kartar Uppal

Sutton Coldfield