“Carl Garner is spot on” – new regular feature from our prolific letter writer!

And we start with a two for one offering! Ed

Dear Sheryll

It seems you plan on keeping your loyalty to a liar, cheat and general criminal, who broke the laws that he himself set and then refused to do what you could bet your bottom dollar he would ask any other PM to do which is to resign.

I am, of course, referring to the right dishonourable Boris Johnson. Supporting him is your own incredibly misguided choice, I guess. It’s a free country after all, at least until the police and crime bill imposes fascism by banning protests – something it seems you also support, judging by your voting record.

I personally take the fairly well-known channel 4 TV show Gogglebox as a bit of a bellwether for public opinion. For the last few years I have wanted to turn off when they have supported the unsupportable but you may want to sit back with a glass of taxpayer subsidised bubbly and watch it in the commons bar in the next few days! The public really don’t like what he has done and his lies aren’t cutting through this time. 

Back to the job at hand, however, I have just one simple question for you today, given that Russia is due to invade Ukraine, and Boris Johnson is playing a poundshop version of the late, great Winston Churchill. My question is as follows: 

Do you now think that it is time that Boris Johnson handed back the dirty Russian money that he accepted to play tennis with an oligarch’s wife and force other ministers to hand back the money that they took from Russian sources, too? 

A simple yes or no answer will suffice.

Carl Garner


Hi, again. So you will be amazed to know that I have sent another letter to the delightful amoeba impersonator, the inimitable Ms Murray. 


Dear Sheryll,

I must say that I am rather annoyed as I need to now wash my sofa cover. You see I am off work today and my bit of light TV viewing was rudely interrupted by spitting my tea out, part  in laughter, part in disbelief at the latest defence of Boris Johnson by that ever so insightful old character, Ann Widdecombe.

It was comedy gold, you really should watch it. Ms Widdecombe claimed that now is not the time to remove a prime minister because  of the situation in Ukraine and the fact that it would create a vacuum of power in government at the wrong time.

Just a few observations about that from me: 

1. Boris Johnson is already a moral vacuum who never appears to do any work other than self- promotion anyway, so how would you even notice his absence? He regularly disappears for weeks on end to go on nice little donor-funded jaunts or japes. On the face of it, things actually run more smoothly when he isn’t there bumbling around like a music hall drunk. 

2. Winston Churchill (you know him, he was an actual leader not a part time Mr Benn tribute act who dresses up for photo opportunities and on the face of it achieves very little else other than self gratification) was only put into place following the removal of Neville Chamberlain at what was, arguably, a more pivotal time in history. No talk of power vacuums then, thank goodness. If Chamberlain had acted like Boris Johnson is now acting, desperately and futilely clinging to power and refusing to do the honourable thing and quit, I have no doubt the war would have had a very different outcome. 

3. If war does break out, Boris Johnson has no real authority anymore since he broke the law and spat in the face of those of us who obeyed it to the letter. He can’t even keep sensible Covid measures in place to save people’s lives because he is so scared of the libertarian fringe of his own party. He is literally going to let people get Covid, suffer and die to save his own neck; keep it classy, Boris! 

Politicians clearly see his weakness and don’t respect him, the media don’t respect him and the public won’t listen to him when he tells us of any measures that we must take.  Also, much more to the point, he has taken Russian money personally in the past to play tennis with an oligarch’s wife; I very much doubt her husband didn’t want a few favours in return for his kind donation. Those with links to Putin aren’t renowned for generosity without a quid pro quo. So, with all of his hollow talk of imposing sanctions and “cleaning up the dirty Russian money in London”, he will be laughed out of the Kremlin.

4. A combination of Brexit terminally weakening us and our political power on the world stage and the fact that pretty much the entire world sees our prime minister as a liability and a liar means that France and the USA are leading discussions with Russia. That the UK isn’t taking the lead in this (for possibly the first time in our history) shows just how low Boris Johnson has pulled this once great nation.

Carl Garner