Perhaps those Conservatives who are voting for a prospective prime minister and Brexit negotiator should seriously consider their positions in view of Boris Johnson’s background, which seems to have formed his unreliable and quite worrying character (‘He was the paramount of exaggeration and distortion and lies. He was a clown’, 15 July). In 1989 Lord Hanney, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, thought it “a bit odd” when greeting Alexander Johnson, whom he knew well, to be told he would prefer to be called Boris.

Brussels seems to have been an unhappy place for Boris Johnson when his father was one of the first British MEPs there. We are not told the cause. Unhappy memories do stay in one’s mind, and recur from time to time with ill effect.

Sonia Purnell writes a most disturbing and worrying article about Boris Johnson’s character (Johnson will inherit a crisis his EU-bashing helped spawn, 15 July). Having worked with him, and living close day by day, she concludes he is a most “bizarre and troubled man”. Max Hastings has made derogatory remarks about him too, though earlier he regarded him as bright.

One reflects on his need for the limelight and power: he uses guile and charm to achieve it. Boris Johnson’s Turkish name might be a clue, a name used extensively in the Turkic region’s countries, part of the old Ottoman empire with its emperors and their powers.

Joan Mazumdar

Galmpton, Devon

• I doubt there is a single Guardian reader who is unaware of the evidence that Boris Johnson is an equivocating, sloppy philanderer. What we need help with is understanding why so many people are willing to follow him over the cliff. Is it all self-serving myopia, or is there something much more serious going on which we have failed to grasp?

Ruth Eversley

Paulton, Somerset

• Interesting that the most prominent book in Boris Johnson’s Brussels office was entitled Factfinder (photograph, 15 July). And a pity he hasn’t made much use of it.

Robin Wendt

Chester

• Re the Churchillian stance taken by Johnson (Letters, 15 July), as I recall, Churchill was slung out by the electorate at the earliest possible opportunity – defeated by a socialist.

Steve Barton

Great Ayton, North Yorkshire

• Boris is what you get if you send Trump to Eton.

Brian Cox

Canterbury, Kent

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