Gunboats have been sent to Jersey, but France isn’t the UK’s enemy – it’s Boris Johnson

(Getty Images)

Boris Johnson is indulging his Churchillian fantasies in sending gunboats to Jersey. But the people of France are not the enemy. The enemy is Boris Johnson and his government, whose incompetence has facilitated more than 150,000 UK Covid deaths.

My sympathies are with the French as they struggle to negotiate fishing licenses with a government that seems to lie as freely as it breathes. In the words of that very honest tweet on Johnson’s government from the Civil Service UK account last May: “Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?”

Sasha Simic

London

Don’t forget the benefits

Amid all the protests about “greedy” foreign ownership of the big English football clubs over the past few weeks, sometimes the benefits get ignored or forgotten.

For example, Chelsea and Manchester City are both old clubs with a proud footballing tradition, but do even their most die-hard fans think that either of them would be anywhere near a champions league final without the largesse of their Russian or Emirati owners over the past 15 years or so?

That kind of heavy financial investment driven success is something to consider along with the demands for greater fan ownership and involvement. You may not be able to have both.

John Maxwell

Bournemouth

Photo opp hypocrisy

Now that campaigning is over, it seems to me that Nicola Sturgeon has lifted more children for photo opportunities in the past weeks than she has out of poverty in 14 years.

Martin Redfern

Melrose

The new normal

Linda Evans distilled my thoughts on Boris Johnson and his cohorts. I feel exactly the same. But what can be done to rectify the harm - Brexit, Covid-19, child food poverty, Northern Ireland, illegal political shenanigans, etc - they have visited on Britain.

It is evident to me, that because there is so much deceit, lies, rhetoric, etc., now the response is, “Oh yer?”. We have been overloaded by so many extremes of atrocious behaviour by the PM and senior MPs that we have come to accept it as a norm.

Ms Evans, myself and other like-minded people ought to form an organisation to rein in the excesses of our PM and government. The country can’t be run by liars, cheats and nincompoops that have plunged the British way of life into such turmoil with flagrant use of illegal and unsavoury practices.

But it seems that this government is breaking down the very core of Britishness by constant revelations of corrupt working practices which has led to an acquiescent acceptance of wrong-doing.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

Well done Boris

Well done Boris Johnson for sending in the gunboats to defend Jersey.

This is yet another example of the French wanting to have their cake and eat it as regards Brexit.

It is pure desperation on the part of Macron who knows he could be in trouble politically if he doesn’t act.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

Stop domestic flights?

Simon Calder notes that the French government has banned domestic flights where there is an alternative train journey with a travel time of four hours or less. He goes on to say that such a ban in this country on, for example, Edinburgh to London flights would be irksome for travellers, and of doubtful practicability, on the grounds that it would be difficult for people who do trips with connecting international flights to destinations such as Johannesburg or Miami. But what proportion of those flying from Edinburgh to London are then going on to international destinations?

Surely for environmental reasons limiting the number of domestic flights, or making them only available for those with through tickets to foreign destinations would be a good thing to do. I think Simon is too wedded to his international air travel to see the wood for the trees.

Ian K Watson

Carlisle

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