Readers' Letters: Maybe Donald Trump won't be a loose cannon after all

I was not exactly over the Moon when Donald Trump won the US election. However, he did make a point in that Kamala Harris talked about “they/them”, but he talked about “you”. He also got down and dirty about concerns that Americans – and many of us – are worried about. China. Illegal immigration. Offshoring of our manufacturing. Crazy climate attitudes which only benefit our competitors. That is music to his electors’ ears.

Next, he has apparently come up with a solution to the Ukraine war. It’s not one which is without its faults, and they are big ones. However, they may be what is simply realpolitik. In other words, a recognition of facts. He suggests that Russia keep the land they currently control. The boundary between Russia and the Ukraine should be policed by the likes of France and the UK. The US would give the latter enough weaponry to ensure that Russia would be repelled if they try to attack again. Ukraine must remain neutral.

Ukraine won’t like it, but it’s better than defeat. The UK and France won’t patrol the border – why should we? Russia would not accept Nato forces right on its border anyway. However, a solution to this issue could lead to a measure of detente, as long as we spend enough on defence. The immense cost in money and casualties is bleeding Russia white.

A triumphant Donald Trump addresses the crowd during the election night party at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida (Picture: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Equally, he will probably stop Keir Starmer giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, whose claims are flimsy, to say the least. It will also keep China away from controlling that part of the Indian Ocean. If he succeeds, good for him. Maybe he won’t be such a loose cannon after all.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Ego has landed

Amid the worldwide expression of congratulations for Donald Trump's election to the US presidency, I admit to a sneaking agreement with Patrick Harvie’s more negative and perhaps, more realistic, assessment (Scotsman, 8 November). On many counts, both personal and professional, Trump is dangerously unfit for office.

Congratulating him massages an ego that is already well out of control. It beggars belief that, out of all the possible candidates, the American electorate have opted for Donald Trump, despite the experiences of his first term of office, not least the horrific events of 6 January, 2021.

Pointedly and graciously, both Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have accepted defeat and promised a peaceful transition of power. Arguably the most divisive President in history, Donald Trump has promised to heal a broken America. We can only hope that he doesn’t break it further.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Vow of silence

Quite a diatribe from Patrick Harvie MSP, of the Greens, against Donald Trump, followed up by the same from Alex Cole-Hamilton, from the Liberal Democrats. Our politics would be a lot healthier if both of them followed the old biblical adage about not commenting about the speck in another’s eye, whilst ignoring the log in your own!

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Key questions

There are some important questions which we all should be asking of the president-elect, Donald Trump:

Is he going to stab the Ukrainians in the back as FD Roosevelt did to the Poles during the Second World War?

For what purpose was Nato set up in 1949?

What makes the statement “climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels” a hoax?

Henryk Belda, Edinburgh

Charity cash

Members who had the sense to vote down the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board’s short-sighted proposal to axe funding to 64 charities serving the city are to be congratulated. Whilst someone in an office block looking at a spreadsheet with no insight into the services in question may well view cutting this funding as a quick way to save money, the degree to which this would be a false economy can hardly be overstated.

It is akin to a transport firm “saving money” by deciding not to service, MOT or insure its vehicles. The warm glow on day one would soon wear off from day two onwards when the inevitable and significantly more expensive calamitous implications start to pile up.

Huntington’s disease is an inherited condition that damages the brain over time, robbing those impacted of their ability to walk, talk, eat, drink, make rational decisions and care for themselves. It is arguably the most complex and difficult to manage condition known to mankind. Families who have this disease visited upon them require specialist support from those with experience and understanding. Due to the vacuum of such statutory services, for the last 35 years the source of that specialist support has been Scottish Huntington’s Association. That’s why statutory providers fund us. We provide an essential service they can’t.

Charities such as ourselves are the fence at the top of the cliff that diminish the requirement for emergency support at the bottom. Funders considering removing that fence do so not only at their own peril but, more importantly, at the peril of the most vulnerable, needy and marginalised people in their own communities who would then flood their ill-equipped, overrun and significantly more expensive acute and emergency services.

Alistair Haw, Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Huntington's Association, Paisley

Healthy scepticism

Anas Sarwar is confused or misleading on A&E waiting times (Scotsman, 8 November). The times he quoted at FMQs on Thursday are in fact “times up to the point of admission, transfer or discharge”. They are times spent within A&E but not times before treatment, which very often starts within A&E.

Scotland’s core Accident and Emergency units have been the best performing in the UK for nine years, They are 6.1 percentage points higher than England and 8.7 higher than Wales, where Labour has run the NHS for 25 years.

Under the SNP, there has been an 82 per cent increase in the A&E consultant headcount, compared with ten years ago and the SNP spends more per head of population on the NHS than the other nations of the UK.

During her Budget speech Rachel Reeves challenged SNP to improve NHS performance in Scotland after £3.4bn boost – the Labour Chancellor claimed NHS performance in Scotland was “worse than in any part of the United Kingdom”. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, this went unchallenged by our supine Scottish Labour MPs.

Mary Thomas

Edinburgh

Hospital praise

The NHS in Scotland generally has a bad press and I wish to redress the balance somewhat.

I spent time as a patient in Ward 54 in the Western General Hospital recently and I am now full of admiration for the staff and facilities. The organisation of every aspect of the hospital was superb and I couldn’t see how even AI could improve on it.

Lying in bed with my fellow patients I was able observe the smooth running of the hospital routine. The staff, from the lowest to the highest grades, worked so well with each other.

With four patients to a room and each with different problems there was a constant coming and going of the staff. I compared it to a huge orchestra which kept on playing the main theme while the different sections of the orchestra joined and left smoothly, completely dovetailing with one another.

Well done the NHS.

Vincent McCann

Edinburgh

Money to burn

It seems the areas of greatest depravation in our major cities have again had “money to burn” on Bonfire Night.

These are the areas where people talk about the residents choosing between eating and heating, having to use food banks, not able to send children to school every day due to lack of clothes and or facilities to wash clothes etc. It is also the areas where many families receive the extra £25 per child per week. Perhaps questions should now be asked on how that money is used and what is seen as a priority when shopping.

Should those arrested following the fires and vandalism be asked how they found money for expensive fireworks? As those involved in the behaviour will know... prisons are full, MSPs have declared they are too young to know what they are doing and there are no holding facilities for those under the age of 18.

In other words, what will stop those involved doing all that damage again at the New Year?

Elizabeth Hands

Armadale, West Lothian

Cracking up

Alastair Dalton reports on repairs and repeated repairs to the road infrastructure supporting Edinburgh’s trams (Scotsman, 8 November). The city’s new transport convener, Stephen Jenkinson, “said such cracking was to be expected”. If so, why was such an inferior system adopted?

Perhaps Mr Jenkinson can vouchsafe to us the incidence of cracked concrete in other cities’ tram systems? Has this happened in, for example, Munich or Nice? If so, what lessons have been learned? If not, why is it happening here?

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Classic cars

My fellow car enthusiasts must have recoiled in horror at the caption in the centrefold of yesterday’s Scotsman. The car depicted is not a Vintage MG but a Classic Triumph TR6.

J Lindsay Walls, Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid 'Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters' or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.