'Boris Johnson - the man was unbelievable!' - Your Letters plus celebrations for local volunteers as they receive the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in our picture from the archive

I have just about recovered from having read an article in the Express and Star about Boris Johnson regarding Sir Gavin Williamson MBE and his handling of GCSE results, not because of the subject matter, which at 83 years old I know little about, but with regards to the fact that this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!

Johnson, when PM, stated repeatedly “I will fix social care”, including outside 10 Downing Street on the day that he was re-elected, which was a statement that he had made repeatedly, before and during his time as PM. This was a subject that I did know something about, having been my wife’s primary carer for 42 years, prior to her death, and had repeatedly campaigned for improvements to, since Thatcher decimated it, using the money allegedly to re-balance the deficit in her balance of payments, and from which it has never recovered.

Johnson meanwhile, saw fit to re-direct money promised to revise social care on numerous occasions, decided to decimate miles of green belt land and eject who knows how many people out of their homes in order to provide a handful of businessmen/women a 30 minute faster journey to and from London! To hell with social care! Those who need it and those who suffer, and or die, prematurely as the result of being unable to get it, or sufficient amounts of it!

The man was unbelievable.

Allan Kyte, Great Wyrley

RAF should fill the black hole

There’s a new £2.6bn black hole in the Ministry of Defence budget. Time to look at the £9bn-a-year Royal Air Force, over-manned and under-employed. The RAF has the most comfortable of the services’ Harmony Guidelines – more time at home for the RAF. For the same pay, sailors and marines have the toughest Harmony Guidelines.

The RAF ‘owns’ 75 per cent of all British aircraft, too many not operational; it operates just 50 per cent of front-line aircraft, the other half Army or Navy. Forty air marshals head 6,000 RAF officers. Most of the RAF’s 30,000 personnel, only 20 per cent with flying duties, are home-based ground crew. Sixty RAF personnel for each one of the RAF’s 500 aircraft (including 160 trainers and 90 gliders) is outrageous.

A week after lunatics broke into RAF Brize Norton, causing £7m damage, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the Chief of the Air Staff, was appointed as Chief of Defence Staff – a reward for failure? Knighton headed an RAF that has now asked Indian Air Force instructors for assistance with pilot training, while other pilots have been trained in the United States. With a reported toxic culture, too, the RAF has managed flying training with extraordinary incompetence.

With RAF front-line operations mainly in support of land forces, the RAF should be merged into the Army. The resulting two armed services would save billions and afford better operational efficiency for UK defence with no reduction in air capability.

Lester May, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy – retired

Have an opinion? Want to be heard? We want to hear your voice!

Write to Readers' letters at [email protected]

Letters to the editor must include the writer’s name and address and will only be published anonymously in exceptional circumstances. The editor reserves the right to condense or amend letters.

Do you have any pictures from the past you would like to share with us? 

Do need help recognising an old street, old faces? If so, send them to [email protected] including your name, where you are from, and as much information as you can about the photo(s) and we will publish as many as we can online and in print.