After Lee Cain, is Cummings next to leave Downing Street? Let’s hope so, Britain’s future depends on it

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The exit of Lee Cain from Downing Street begs the question: should Dominic Cummings follow him?  

How successful has the brains behind Brexit and Boris Johnson’s leadership challenge really been? He is said to see himself as a great disrupter and challenger to group-think. He and Johnson may believe he has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but what about the response to Covid-19, preparation for the end of the transition period, feeding underprivileged children, getting a trade agreement with the EU or deliberately breaking both domestic and international law and damaging relationships with the judiciary and our allies?  

Cummings’s willingness and ability to disrupt was useful when the aim was straightforward destruction, whether it was of our relationship with the EU, traditional Conservative Party values or Theresa May, but any inability or refusal to be part of a group is disastrous when trying to create or build anything that requires cooperation and persuasion – like tackling Covid-19, setting up a functioning track, trace and isolate system, timely implementation of lockdowns, setting up systems that enable business to function post-transition, securing a trade deal with the EU... the list is endless.

All that Cummings has brought to the party, apart from his willingness to disrupt, ignore the law and make enemies, are empty slogans. Remember “Oven Ready Deal”? And the iron discipline he deploys to keep ministers away from the media, even to the point where Johnson willingly hid in a fridge. In the short term, this helps conceal the government’s incompetence and is useful to Johnson, but it’s no substitute for considered, structured plans which are clearly communicated and successfully implemented.  

Unless Johnson becomes more focused and changes to an inclusive, open model then we as a nation are destined for the dustbin of history. Can Johnson achieve this with Cummings in No 10?

John Simpson

Ross on Wye  

A new hope?

There is speculation about the goings-on behind the doors of No 10 and the reasons behind Mr Lee Cain’s resignation, and others who may follow, including Mr Cummings, as well as the government’s chief Brexit negotiator Mr David Frost.

Are we perhaps overlooking another possibility? All the players mentioned have been key players in the Vote Leave campaign and have long held a political attitude toward Europe. Add to that, Michel Barnier, Europe’s chief negotiator on Brexit, is in town at a late and very critical time, as he puts it “redoubling efforts” to reach agreement on the future partnership. 

Also, in the last few days it has become clear that our future relations with the US on many fronts will depend very much on how we resolve Brexit including, in particular, the issues about the Irish border.

Would it be too much to hope that the prime minister and other aides have concluded it is now time to settle outstanding differences with Europe and get an agreement before it is too late?

Ken Carruthers

Tadley, Hampshire

Get a grip

I read with weary interest about the latest psychodrama and that it is very important to note that Lee Cain, senior adviser to the PM is resigning in a hissy fit about who knows what. But I realise in the higher echelons of No 10, in what purports to be a very dysfunctional “Leave campaigners’ hideaway”, this is major stuff.

But what gets my goat, at a time when Britain has the highest record of coronavirus deaths in Europe, which is an out-and-out tragedy, the Brexit negotiations appear to be on a tightrope with time running out fast, a new president-elect who is not all enamoured with the strategy of the possible breaking of international law, and hospitals filling up fast with Covid-19 patients. the public is expected to care that Dominic Cummings’s best mate is leaving.  

As I have written before, I wouldn’t mind so much if these seemingly very clever strategists, movers and shakers were actually any good at their jobs. They just appear to want to be strong-arm political bruisers with about as much subtlety as heavy duty tanks. Please get a grip, a decent overhaul is required so that men and women who do not necessarily toe the obligatory party line, can bring expertise and knowledge to the Downing Street table, without fear or favour of outraging Dominic Cummings.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Keep calm and carry on, Keir

Rather than making a misjudgment regarding the mood of the moment, Sir Keir Starmer was speaking for those of us who don’t follow like sheep after the mood of the moment.

Of course we want this virus brought under control, but much money has already been spent on track and trace that doesn’t deliver. After all the excitement of the vaccine that will soon be ready to be rolled out, and much money having been spent, we discover that it will be impossible for many institutions to use.

Carry on making the awkward observations, Sir Keir.

Val Hatton

Address supplied

Climate hero

Military veteran Donald Bell is a brave man. We are not told who the nurse is that helped him lay the wreath warning of the need to act over climate change, but she is also a brave woman.

As always we now see the stubborn blindness and crowd-pleasing condemnation of politicians, and predictable sections of the press, who believe mourning those killed in wars can only be done in one way, and woe betide anyone who doesn’t conform. Anyone whose red poppy is not conspicuous is fair game for bullying, and some of us remember how Michael Foot was lambasted for wearing what was deemed an insufficiently respectful coat at the Cenotaph. Personally, I stopped wearing a poppy when I saw fox hunters flaunting poppies while simultaneously slaughtering innocent animals, but I still put money in the tin, and I still reflect on the horrors of war and the sacrifices made in its name. I am entitled to my principles and so are Extinction Rebellion.

All the poor young men who died in the trenches, or those men and women who died fighting fascism, would surely not want the future generations for whom they were prepared to lay down their lives to suffer the potential anguish that lies in wait if climate change is not tackled comprehensively, and at once. The world will be in dreadful turmoil, with massive migration movements by people from countries no longer habitable, wars fought over the remaining habitable areas, disease and starvation. The concomitant suffering of other species on the earth is too horrible to contemplate.

Extinction Rebellion sometimes misjudge the public mood, but I thank God for their efforts to save the planet, and so I congratulate Donald Bell for conspicuous bravery of a different but very important kind.

Penny Little

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

Old-fashioned, not racist

Greg Clarke is quoted as saying that young girls do not like having balls kicked at them, and suggesting that coming out as gay is a life choice. He also remarked on Asians working in IT. These comments do suggest that he may hold stereotypical views which are inappropriate for a prominent figure in sport or, indeed, in any other sphere of public life. So it is right that he should have stepped down as the chair of the Football Association.

However, much has been made of his use of “outdated language”. Not very many years ago it was regarded as improper to describe someone as”black” – the polite term was “coloured”. Now the opposite is the case. We may not say a person is “coloured”, but it’s OK (I think – though I could be wrong) to call them a “person of colour”. None of these terms is essentially more or less offensive than the others; it’s just a matter of fashion. There is a danger that making a fuss about the use of an old-fashioned term could have the opposite of the desired effect by causing the complainant to appear too eager to find offence where none is intended.

We must all be alert to the immorality and destructiveness of racist attitudes. But it’s the underlying intent that matters, not the merely unfashionable word.

Susan Alexander

Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire