I was delighted to discover that in October 2020 Boris Johnson informed his colleagues that “Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people” (‘Nastiness, arrogance and misogyny’ of No 10 exposed at Covid inquiry, 31 October). What pleased me is that he seems to have become an expert on the history of the human race. In Johnson’s worldview at this moment, was he thinking of old people as a category of human that needed to be dealt with, and now a solution had arrived?
Can I therefore apologise for the fact that the efficiency of Covid in dealing with me didn’t go so far as wiping me out? However, the blame for that surely lies at the hands of the health workers who did all they could to save my life. As the inquiry has also revealed, the desperate lack of preparedness and, I would add, those workers’ understaffed, low-pay conditions, are surely suitable punishment for their refusal to see us old people as bits of mulch.
Michael Rosen
London
• My friends range very widely in age, but many are, like me, in their 70s or older. Apparently, for Boris Johnson, we are dispensable. Throughout the country, people our age are volunteers at local organisations covering care for the environment, charities, sports and the arts. Many of us continue academic research and writing in the sciences and the humanities, whether retired or not.
We sing, we act, we cook, we paint, we help in schools. We raise funds. And we agitate, campaign and protest. We support younger relatives with families during these hard times, and act as unpaid carers for partners, disabled children and extremely elderly relatives. I wonder whether those in government during the Covid crisis are, have ever been, or will ever be as socially useful?
Jane M Card
Harwell, Oxfordshire
• Marina Hyde once again surpasses herself (Let’s ease up on Johnson and Cummings: Covid was just the ‘wrong crisis’ for them, OK?, 1 November). She perfectly captures the grotesque farce of the UK’s ugly Covid clown show, with its government of egotistical arrivistes, frauds and misogynist bully boys, perpetually at war with each other while the virus raged. But with regard to the profanities that have raised eyebrows at the inquiry, I think it’s not so much the number of fucks uttered that’s a big deal; rather, it’s the number of fucks clearly not given by those in charge that should have us all reaching for our swear boxes too.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
• The claim that Boris Johnson countenanced sacrificing the lives of the elderly to Covid is not only sickening, it is also deeply ironic, because pensioners are the most staunch supporters of the Conservatives; according to the pollster YouGov, 67% of the 70‑plus cohort voted Conservative in 2019, while only 14% of them voted Labour.
Prof Pete Dorey
Cardiff University
• So Boris Johnson lacked the skill set to lead the country through the pandemic (Boris Johnson had ‘wrong skill set’ to lead during Covid, top aide tells inquiry, 31 October). We had noticed, and would welcome suggestions as to what his skill set actually is.
Vicky Woodcraft
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
• It looks as if The Thick of It was biographical and not satire at all.
David Duell
Durham
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