Oh dear – I seem to be in agreement with Dominic Cummings

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Bad blood: the PM with his former special adviser (AFP via Getty Images)

I find myself in a state of consternation. If, as suggested, Dominic Cummings will be stating to a parliamentary committee this week that Boris Johnson’s delays in implementing lockdowns have resulted in tens of thousands of excess deaths, I will be fully in agreement. I would never have thought myself likely to concur with Mr Cummings on any subject. But not only that – I’m equally confused at feeling grateful that Mr Cummings may have the courage to spell out, in a public arena, the manifest failures of our dithering prime minister and his flawed, fatal policies.

One can only hope that “Dom” hasn’t got too many more future declarations about Boris Johnson’s manifest culpability to come, as I’m unsure I can cope with the dissonance.

Alistair Vincent

Chipping Barnet

Dominic Cummings, we are told, is expected to hold the prime minister responsible for avoidable Covid deaths. Frankly, I don’t think anyone is going to be surprised by revelations that the current administration’s inept and slow response to the pandemic has caused many thousands of unnecessary deaths, economic hardship and a massive debt to be cleared by future generations. 

Hedley Baldwin

Address supplied

Cash for cake

I wish to offer my congratulations to Ms Symonds and Mr Johnson on their forthcoming nuptials. Can I ask, please, how much do I have to contribute to the Tory party (or the charity to be set up to fund the event) to warrant an invitation? Will they also be seeking sponsorship or sell the photo opportunities to Hello! magazine?

Nigel Groom

Essex

Strange sort of hospitality

Priti Patel’s “wholesale reform” of our immigration system will, we are told, see the great British public supporting “a new system that works ... against those who abuse our hospitality and generous spirit”.

One wonders whether our “generosity of spirit” is best exemplified by crowding asylum seekers into obsolete accommodation like that at Napier Barracks during a pandemic, and trying to ship them off to places like Ascension Island for processing.

D. Maughan Brown

York

Tooth ache

Today’s piece about the state of dental care (‘Patients waiting three years to see dentists as sector gripped by “crisis”’, 24 May) would be little changed if it was written when I was young in the 1950s and 1960s. For the last half century, no government seems to have done a useful thing about the provision of dental care. I am old enough to remember A&E provision at dental hospitals for those in acute need. Whatever happened to that? I’m happy to be corrected but I cannot recall a single new dental school opening in my lifetime.

Dr Anthony Ingleton

Sheffield

The truth at last?

Does BBC stand for Big Bashir Cover-up?

Dora Henry

Stratford upon Avon

Away with the Fairy

A word of caution following Joanna Pallister’s advice to use a small smear of washing up liquid on your spectacle lenses to prevent fogging when wearing a mask (Letters, 23 May). Washing up liquid will attack the coatings on some lenses and should be avoided.

C C Elshaw

Address supplied