John Harris’s article (The fatal weakness of the Conservatives is not seeing the kindness in most people, 19 December) carried the evergreen quote of the Brittania Unchained (definitely not Unhinged) group: “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world.” Your photograph showed employees of the public in the Downing Street garden, standing around chatting, with wine and cheese at hand, at a claimed “work meeting”. Having retired from the NHS, where consuming alcohol on hospital property was forbidden due do its effect on professional performance, and where late working hours meant working flat out into the next morning rather than just a balmy evening, I applaud the prime minister for promulgating the view of the Brittania Unhinged group even at the very heart of government.
Dr Jonathan J Ross
Sheffield
• I was 18 when I first walked on to a Covid ward. I began the year studying cells and chemistry with my friends in sixth form and I ended it donning scrubs on my own in a small staff toilet preparing to cross the red line. I sat in the corner as a nurse asked if a family wanted to be taught how to put on PPE so they could see their daughter. “No,” they replied. They had done this many times before. Today was goodbye.
Later that morning, in a sombre silence broken only by the buzzing and beeping of life-saving equipment, I assisted in taking a woman to the mortuary. This was my fourth trip of the day, but this time I noticed that the patient’s tag said she was scarcely much older than me. I took my break alone, to keep myself and others safe.
That evening, I bought myself a pizza and ate it in a car park by the sea. The police promptly came and told me to go home. Perhaps I should have worn a suit and said it was a work meeting.
Louis Sanderson
Exeter, Devon
• Thank you for your photo of the Downing Street party. Earlier on, I wrote to the Independent Police Complaints Commission urging it to investigate the Met’s behaviour in failing to investigate possible Covid breaches. Alas, it appears I can’t complain. Today it emailed me, saying: “In order to be eligible you must be either, a person directly affected by police conduct, a person who was adversely affected by police conduct or a person who witnessed the conduct at first hand. Any person who is aware of police conduct through a third party or, through a medium such as television, will neither be a witness, nor can they be adversely effected.”
So despite the picture raising my blood pressure further, there is nothing I can do.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife
• If this meeting was a work meeting, why was the future Mrs Johnson present? Alternatively, since she was present, does this not confirm that she has, as many suspected, an influence on the prime minister’s decisions?
Honor Cooper
London
• If this was indeed a meeting, presumably somebody somewhere was taking minutes?
Eleanor Jardine
Hertford
• I can hear Jim Royle from here in Lincoln: “Work meeting my arse!” And I agree with him.
David Cordingley
Lincoln
• Mixing wine with work at No 10? For some of us, wine is essential for work, at least on Sundays.
Fr Ed Hone
Dean, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.
