Readers' letters: One of Boris Johnson's biggest mistake was faith in Dominic Cummings

If the contributions from Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain demonstrate anything then it is their complete arrogance and conceit when they were supposedly working for the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the Covid pandemic.

The use of disgusting and likely misogynistic language in WhatsApp messages from Cummings highlights his high regard for his own abilities to the detriment of almost everyone else involved.

It is clear that Boris Johnson and others most certainly made mistakes during the management of the crisis. However one of his biggest mistakes was to show a level of loyalty to Cummings which he showed when he allowed Cummings (simply a special adviser) to hold a personal press conference in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street to defend the indefensible – Mr Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle.

In not dismissing Mr Cummings on the spot, Boris Johnson further “empowered” Cummings to actually believe he had control of matters and of Mr Johnson in 10 Downing Street. Ultimately Mr Johnson failed to realise that he had employed a “snake in the grass” but following the Cummings evidence, he must now surely be aware.

Former special advisor at 10 Downing Street, Dominic Cummings, gives evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry earlier this week (Picture: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/AFP via Getty Images)

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Settling scores

The UK Covid Inquiry raises the stakes every day in the titillating and almost totally unhelpful level of comments from those apparently most closely involved in the Covid advice and therefore decision-making process.

Apart from the Cummings character assassinations and industrial language, former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara’s reported comments (Scotsman, 2 November) apparently centred more on the fact that women’s point of view had been totally sidelined during the macho decision-making process. What this feminine point of view would have added hasn’t been disclosed but somehow one feels that Boris might have been reined in on some of the more outrageous reported utterances.

Be that as it may, at present this inquiry appears to be centred on an individual charactern assassination rather than learning the lessons that should or could be learned from the shambles that existed at the start of the epidemic.

We should hope that as the days of evidence accumulate that the inquiry provides the clarity and vision that enables answers and we move forward safe in the knowledge that next time the country is faced with similar emergencies our services will have the structure in place to provide succour.

Tony Lewis, Coylton, South Ayrshire

Time for truth

It is quite startling that Dominic Cummings’ evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry regarding Scotland’s then First Minister’s actions after Cobra meetings seems almost exactly as many saw it at the time. He saw her as carrying out a “kind of performance” and that her “babbling to the media straight afterwards” actually undermined the Cobra proceedings.

At the time, watching and listening to Ms Sturgeon, I felt it was more a personal and ego-massaging TV performance than it was being part of a dedicated and combined effort across the UK to contain and then eradicate a deadly virus. In fact this applied to much of the First Minister’s work in the crisis period.

Her almost daily pronouncements and directions took on an almost dictatorial slant and was not repeated I do not think in any other country or region in Europe or the United States.

I do believe that all unredacted messages – if ever revealed in Scotland – will tell us much. I can well understand why so many of those involved would not want the worst of them revealed. Kate Forbes in this respect is a breath of freshair.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Russell’s paradox

Bertrand Russell’s famous paradox (that every set theory that contains an unrestricted comprehension principle leads to contradictions) threatened the very foundations of mathematics. It took his genius to arrive at this conclusion. While it may have been obvious to him, though bewildering to the rest of us, it showed that any proposition can be proved from a contradiction.

100 years on, we have Nicola Sturgeon claiming she has “nothing to hide” from the Covid-19 inquiry but refusing to say if she actually deleted the messages that they are requesting. If only Russell were still alive to make sense of what she says. Presumably she believes that some worthwhile proposition can be derived from this contradiction?

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Regan’s timing

Its a great pity that Ash Regan didn’t defect to Alba before the election for new SNP leader and First Minister. All she achieved was to split the anti-Humza vote and, if that hadn’t happened, Kate Forbes would most likely have won.

We would have had a competent, ministerially successful First Minister instead of the embarrassingly inept one that Humza Yousaf has turned out to be. Not only that, we would also have been spared having Shona Robison as Deputy First Minister.

D Mason, Penicuik, Midlothian

Risk assessment

I note that the Scottish Green MSPs are trying to prevent Ash Regan from being accommodated in “their” corridor at Holyrood.

It’s interesting that the Scottish Green Party believes it’s acceptable to force women to accept men in women’s spaces, such as women’s prisons, but not for the Greens to have someone who disagrees with them sharing a corridor in Holyrood because they consider that is a situation that is unsafe. I think they may need to review their understanding of risk assessment.

Jenny Bell, Perth, Perth & Kinross

Check us out

Ian Johnston’s tribute to chess will inspire readers to pursue this wonderful struggle on the 64 squares (“The game of chess has taught me valuable life lessons”, Scotsman, 1 November).

He says no game is ever the same. With rare exceptions, usually short tactical battles in known lines, that is a fact.

Edinburgh Chess Club is currently celebrating it’s 200th anniversary. Probably, no serious game has ever been repeated in that time.

We have replicated, however, the famous Edinburgh versus London correspondence match in the bicentennial celebrations. Moves went by horse-driven stagecoach then but now by the internet. As 200 years ago, Edinburgh won.

We invite chess players of all standards to our historic club rooms for a battle of minds.

Raj Bhopal, President of the Edinburgh Chess Club

Guising memories

I was playing online chess with my 23-year-old English grandson this week, when he asked if we got any “trick or treaters” round our way at Halloween? “Not here,” I said.

I told him, as a wee boy – when I start off with “when I was a wee boy in Glasgow...” the family settles down to listen – I’d be dressed as a pirate. My dad would take a cork, rub it on the inside of the chimney, then give me a black moustache and goatee beard, to go with the handkerchief on my head, trousers inside my wellies. He referred to us as guisers.

Having been brought up not “to speak to strange men,” we only called on the neighbours, who would usually have a small selection of sweeties on offer. Almost no selection actually; rationing was still in full force. I remember the joy when, years later, rationing was lifted and Spangles appeared in R S McColls in Clarence Drive (I think) the first confectionery on the shelves after the war.

I learned in later years R S McColl (the founder) was a high-scoring Queen’s Park player from the early-1900s. Following on from my dad and his dad, I still follow the Queen’s Park results to this day.

They could do with R S these Saturdays.

Doug Morrison, Cranbrook, Kent

No devolution

The folly of the proposed SNP council tax freeze has been well documented. It is merely a political soundbite, a cynical bid to gain votes and a rerun of an old Salmond policy. The damage this policy will cause to local services has also been widely reported. My concern is that it is a blatant attack on devolution.

The definition of devolution is the transfer of powers and funding from national to local government. It is important that it ensures that decisions are made closer to the local people, communities and businesses they affect.

The SNP are the antithesis of devolution.

Rob Linton, Dumfries, Dumfires & Galloway

Words matter

What is the difference between a “ceasefire” and a “humanitarian pause” in the context of Gaza, you might be asking yourself. It's more than a linguistic matter, obviously.

If you "stand by Israel”, or refrain from criticising Israel, you are a “humanitarian pause” person – that's Rishi Sunak and Kier Starmer – whereas Anas Sarwar is more a “ceasefire” person.

Sunak and Starmer are of course framing things according to the US line, with the virtue-signalling addendum that everything should be done wherever possible in accordance with International Law. Whether collective punishment, forced relocation, bombardment from the air and the cutting off vital supplies is in accordance with International Law they do not bother to explain. Kier Starmer is a lawyer. He should know.

Crawford Mackie, Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid 'Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters' or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.