• I AGREE with most of Sue Banks’s letter, (Sweet Caroline is not right!, July 15), concerning the much debated issue about Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s initial response to fans booing players who “took the knee” before a match.

Priti Patel gave the general public reason to doubt her sincerity when she issued contradictory statements saying taking the knee represented “gesture politics” and whether to boo the England players was a “choice” for fans to make.

That was followed by: “I’m disgusted that @England players who have given so much for our country this summer have been subject to vile racist abuse on social media.”

Boris Johnson fared worse when he issued a statement condemning fans’ racist abuse of players following the Euro 2020 defeat of England on penalties at Wembley, despite previously refusing to condemn the fans who booed in response to black footballers taking the knee.

It seems to me that Johnson was perhaps afraid to show support for “taking the knee” because his conscience may have reminded him of his infamous 2002 description of black people as “piccaninnies” and his referring to “watermelon smiles”.

That has haunted him ever since – though he eventually apologised during the London mayoral contest of 2008 – and so it was inevitable that his recent statement concerning the racist abuse of black footballers (which was supposed to be unequivocal and unambiguous) would be condemned by the general public as hypocrisy.

Lessons must be learned by the prime minister and home secretary because if they expect to be taken seriously, if and when another situation arises concerning racism, and they fail to speak with one voice, they will lose whatever trust that ethnic minorities place in them.

As for the purpose of Sweet Caroline as an anthem, it is in my view, as vain and futile as Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home) has proved to be for the past 25 years.

TREVOR ELLIS
Chalkhill Road, HA9