I feel sorry for Boris Johnson (North Shropshire: PM in ‘last chance saloon’, 18 December). Coming from a long-standing member of the Labour party, this may sound odd. I should add that I also come from a family that sent boys to Eton – girls were, and still are, spared such a fate – so I have intimate knowledge of the damage that such a “good education” can do. Puzzled readers have only to refer to Richard Beard’s Sad Little Men, as recommended by John Harris (Boris Johnson’s crises boil down to one thing: contempt for the rest of us, 12 December).
That book makes clear how tearing boys away from their families from the age of seven, isolating them from the real world for months on end and subjecting them to a regime of bullying conformity – with the promise that one day they will lead the country – creates men who find emotional connection and empathy a real challenge, to put it mildly.
Whatever one thinks about the current predicament of Johnson, this is not the sort of education to which the young people of our country should aspire.
Henrietta Heald
London
• The offices of bailiff of the manor of Northstead and steward of the Chiltern Hundreds are effectively resignation vehicles for MPs. I would like to suggest a third office: governor of Peppa Pig World – for which there is now an obvious candidate.
Frank Learner
Barry, Vale of Glamorgan
• In appointing Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, to investigate parties at No 10, Boris Johnson should have heeded Inspector Truscott’s maxim in Joe Orton’s Loot: “Never search your own back yard – you may find what you’re looking for” (No 10 party inquiry head steps down over claims he also broke rules, 17 December).
John Bailey
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• Simon Case, henceforth to be known as the drinks cabinet secretary.
Colin Jones
West Norwood, London
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