IN his column (Echo, Nov 27), Chris Moncrieff regales us with the tale of Boris Johnson, formerly mayor of London and his ludicrous waste of public money by the purchase of a German water cannon which could not be used in the United Kingdom, and have now been sold off as scrap.

This waste of some £300,000 is negligible by Boris’ standards. When he was mayor and advocating the building of another bridge over the Thames, the so called “Garden Bridge” he assured the population of London that it would be financed solely by private funding and would not cost the taxpayers a penny.

Unfortunately when he left office, the current mayor Sadiq Khan reported that about £30m of public money had already been spent (or wasted) on this vanity project.

Eric Gendle, Nunthorpe