I FEEL I must reply to John Armstrong’s letter headlined “Hindsight politics” (HAS, Feb 27).

Comparative statistics on countries’ Covid 19 experiences are widely available on the internet.

I consider that total deaths per million of population are the best comparisons, since these eliminate a country’s size as a factor.

On this basis the UK has always been in the bottom ten, and currently ranks as the fourth worst country in the world, even below the US!

Moreover, our death rate per million is nearly 350 times that in New Zealand, and 50 times that in Australia.

While I doubt that any country will ever return to the way it was before Covid 19, certainly these (and other far-eastern) countries have been back to what is probably the new “normality” for a good while now.

I have never suggested that Boris Johnson was responsible for Covid 19, but who else can we hold responsible for our country’s lamentable response to it?

Moreover, how could another Prime Minister possibly have done worse?

Throughout the crisis, the Government has loudly claimed to be following scientific advice, whereas in fact it has all too often ignored it, with dire consequences.

Based on his performance, in my opinion Sir Keir Starmer would not have ignored this advice, but we will never know for certain; only Boris Johnson’s Government’s gross incompetence is an incontrovertible fact!

I have publicly acknowledged the success of the Government’s vaccine roll-out, although this was an obvious response to the mess we find ourselves in, and I am sure that any other Prime Minister would have done the same in similar circumstances.

And as for Brexit, this is already damaging our economy, and as this fact becomes progressively more and more obvious, only European fools will still be tempted to repeat our mistake.

To summarise, I don’t believe that I am the one who is blinkered!

Alan Jordan, Middridge.