Why is the country not clamouring for an election?

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

It is astounding that the exposure of the Covid inquiry has not resulted in the resignation of the present government (PA)

On a daily basis, the Covid inquiry is revealing jaw-dropping levels of incompetence, hubris, callousness, spitefulness and self-interest. It is astounding to me that the exposure of this lethal incompetence has not resulted in the resignation of the present government.

Why is the country not clamouring for an election? And even more baffling is the fact that without doubt, many thousands will still vote Tory next time around – have our standards really dropped so low that we are prepared to overlook the heap of multiple scandals and failures of the past 13 years?

Nothing seems to work any more. Companies hide behind internet robots, making themselves inaccessible, frustrating customers and deliberately achieving unaccountability.  Tradesmen are as rare as hens’ teeth.  The police are a whole scandal in themselves, failing to bother with vast numbers of crimes, and even committing crimes themselves, without compunction.  Scammers plague our phones, our emails, even our front doors.  Everything costs more while the service deteriorates. The very plight of our entire planet doesn’t even seem to bother the present shambles of a government!  Does the government care about anything other than their own and their mates’ wealth?

Labour have a huge open goal in front of them.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

These mistakes can never be repeated

So, as the Covid inquiry calls in the big beasts from Boris Johnson’s regime, one thing that becomes ever clearer is the incompetence, the lies, and the total ignorance of a government that was in denial.

We know now that Boris Johnson should have locked down three weeks earlier. Yet instead he ignored advice that would have saved lives. Even Matt Hancock’s own version of events in his book, explosive as that was, has turned out to have understated the whole chaos at the heart of government.

Which underlines why this inquiry was needed and why, when the inquiry reports back, changes must be made to ensure mistakes are never repeated.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

History repeats

The scene emerging from the Covid inquiry of relationships within Downing Street is barely believable. Boris and Carrie Johnson cast as surrogate Tsar and Tsarina with Dominic Cummings as some latter-day Rasputin. As a catalyst for political change, the drama may draw some parallels between the widely anticipated fall of the Tory party and the Russian Revolution.  On balance, neither the Tsar, nor Boris, the self-styled “King of the World”, will be much missed.

David Smith

Taunton

Too little, too late

So here we are, Cop28, the 28th time for the world to come together with the aim of saving planet Earth. They are still saying they will limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees, though it has reached 1.4 already.

I saw a Tory minister on TV saying “all this climate nonsense started with Greta Thunberg”. What utter rubbish, do these people know nothing? We have been warned for decades. The first I remember was Jacques Cousteau in 1957 warning about coral reef bleaching because of rising water temperatures.

Back in the 1960s I joined a number of others in a call to save mankind and our planet Earth. Bob Dylan in 1963 sang about the sound of a wave that would drown the whole world, in 1964 he sang about pellets of poison filling our oceans. Others like Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Mike Pinder, of The Moody Blues, were calling on governments to bring in legislation to combat climate change.

Here we are 60 years later and they have done very little in this regard. Now Mother Earth is fighting back trying to rid herself of the parasite that is killing her, mankind.

Tony Bourner

Axminster

Our great offices need great people

Many people have and will continue to criticise Henry Kissinger, primarily for his involvement in the Vietnam conflict and the overspill. I am old enough to remember those days and most assuredly disagree with many of his decisions. However, what we must reflect upon is his innate ability and his once huge presence on the world stage. I struggle to think of anyone close nowadays.

Consider this also: we once had Richard Nixon (close colleague of his) in the same White House that Donald Trump occupied? Over here we once had Margaret Thatcher, and somehow ended up with Liz Truss for 49 days! My point is that if this downwards trajectory continues we are frankly doomed. I do not know the answer to this dilemma, but quite simply great offices of state need great, but sometimes sadly flawed, people.

Robert Boston

Kent