APPARENTLY, Boris Johnson is a great admirer of Winston Churchill and like Churchill he is Prime Minister during a crisis.

Churchill faced the Battle of Britain in 1940 and Johnson is currently faced with the worst crisis since then, the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the great myths of the Battle of Britain is that the UK and the Empire defeated the German Luftwaffe solely because of the bravery of the RAF pilots and the quality of fighter planes, notably the Spitfire.

Of course, RAF fighter pilots were outstandingly brave, but so were the Germans, whose pilots were also more experienced and greater in number. Moreover, the Luftwaffe too had excellent fighter aircraft.

Probably the decisive factors in winning the Battle of Britain were leadership and tactics. Head of RAF Fighter Command was Hugh (Stuffy) Dowding.

During the late 1930s Dowding had planned for such an attack and developed the first ground control interception network, involving not only pilots and planes, but included radar, observer corps and a centralised system of underground bomb proof bunkers.

In short Dowding was an expert, who surrounded himself with experts and they had a plan. By contrast the German Luftwaffe was led by Herman Goering, a loud mouthed, feckless, self-seeking braggart and buffoon who made things up as he went along, with disastrous results for Nazi Germany.

Churchill by all accounts detested the humourless Dowding, but he had the good sense to leave the Battle of Britain to experts like Dowding, who according to the great historian AJP Taylor did more than any other individual to save Britain from defeat.

Johnson by contrast has left testing, tracking and tracing of coronavirus to inexpert amateurs, notably Baroness Dido Harris whose background is in horse racing and telecoms.

The result is abysmal failure and a second wave of the virus.

Churchill had many faults as a war leader, but at the crucial time of the Battle of Britain he made the right decisions. By contrast Johnson has been as big a disaster for Britain in 2020 as Goering was for Germany in 1940.

John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.