Readers' Letters: Scotland should do anything it can to avoid Trump's influence

It seems we have entered a new phase in our so-called democracy – transactional democracy. I take this to mean that governments can just buy their way out of any problems and move on to the next one, presumably with a limitless supply of other people’s money on a long-term loan. This could be called a long grass loan as this is probably where it will end up. Remember Labour’s disastrous PPP loans which we are still paying for?

According to US President Donald Trump, there is no end to the world's issues that cannot be solved by the dollar.

Bomb states into oblivion? We’ll build them back up again and then we’ll own them.

Donald Trump is making waves internationally with his desire for ever greater power for the United States (Picture: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Fly to Mars? We’ll get the people to pay for Elon Musk’s vanity project and he can reap the rewards.

The Chagos Islands? How much do you want?

In the recent TV drama blockbuster Yellowstone a displaced Native American chief tells John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner), owner of the biggest ranch in Montana, that one day he’s going to come riding in on his horse with $14 billion and buy back his rightful land before eradicating every trace of the Dutton family.

This got me thinking that in an era where money is everything, how much would Scots have to pay Westminster to be free?

I think it’s time that we seriously thought of a figure and got the hell outta Dodge before Donald Trump comes looking for what he thinks is rightfully his.

David Cruickshanks, Strathmiglo, Fife

Only Trumps...

It's like the Only Fools And Horses episode in which Rodney dreams of a world ruled by Del Boy – not only does Donald Trump think he's entitled to Canada, Greenland and the Gulf of Mexico, he now wants Gaza.

Is that not what Vladimir Putin has done with Crimea and is trying to do with Ukraine? Let’s see if the West attack America’s Del Boy as much as they have attacked Putin.

J Moore, Glasgow

Time to stand up

I cannot believe that world leaders will just stand by and watch the rules-based international order be blown out of the water by the buffoon currently inhabiting the White House, with his strings being pulled by a caricature Dr Evil who wasn't even born in the US! (Some immigrants, like the Trump family and Elon Musk, seem to be more acceptable than others.)

Now, more than ever, the European Union and those outwith it need to show some guts and resist his breathtakingly absurd proposal to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Arab countries, too, must stop playing a double game and make it clear that the proposed ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the land they have inhabited for thousands of years is completely unacceptable.

Maybe someone could remind Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he was once, laughably, a human rights lawyer.

I'd like to remind them all of a quote from the Talmud: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.”

Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Astronauts ahoy

President Trump wants to purchase Greenland, turn Canada into a US state and “take back” the Panama Canal.

Might I respectfully suggest that first he prevent his military helicopters colliding with civil aircraft, and second, he safely returns his astronauts who have been orbiting the Earth for many months in what by now must be the most unsanitary place in the Solar System.

Doug Clark, Currie, Midlothian

Hard cell

SNP Justice Secretary Angela Constance has announced that HMP Glasgow, the replacement for Barlinnie prison, will cost almost an eye-watering £1 billion and open three years later than originally planned (your report, 5 February). According to Ms Constance the reason that the cost has risen from £100 million to ten times that and from the estimate given in 2022 of £400m is due to outside factors such as “Brexit, the Covid pandemic, and the war in Ukraine”.

She would have us believe that the costs to build this prison, which will only increase capacity by 357 places, have more than doubled since 2022 is due to Covid, the restrictions for which more or less ended in January 2022, and Brexit which took place in January 2020, and a war taking place in a foreign country.

In the Justice Secretary’s letter to the Criminal Justice Committee she stated that “this sort of cost increase is not unique to prisons”. Don’t we know it! Everything the SNP touches costs more than originally claimed and is delivered late, be it ferries, bridges, hospitals and now prisons.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Prison break?

Does Justice Secretary Angela Constance really think the replacement for Barlinnie prison should be seen as giving the city an economic boost? It’s not exactly a tourist attraction and at the cost of nearly a billion pounds and years late. it will be a long time before any economic boost will be had , if any.

I would say if it’s good for the economy, why have they not built more?

Andrew Thorpe, Dunfermline, Fife

Heed lessons

It was disappointing to read of the reaction of Edinburgh City Council to the information about the exam successes at Berwickshire High (your report, 29 January). These results followed an emphasis on knowledge and content, both key elements in educational attainment.

The views of Professor Lindsay Paterson, with his long experience in education, should not be taken lightly.

Arrangements should be made for a group of councillors to visit the High School at Duns because this is a task for elected representatives, not for “officers” of the local authority.

The attitudes displayed at the council meeting are revealing, and go some way to explaining why so many Edinburgh parents make so much effort and sacrifices (with further pressures arising from Chancellor Rachel Reeves' VAT imposition) to send their children to independent schools.

(Dr) IA Glen MBE FRSGS, Airdrie, North Lanarkshire

Sinking feeling

I read today the latest depressing chapter in the neverending ferry fiasco (your report, 5 February). I wonder if it is time for the Scottish Government’s ferry owning firm Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (Cmal) to be renamed, Caledonian Maritime Deficits Ltd (Cdal)!

SR Wild, Edinburgh

Great British lies

Another one of the promises enunciated by the British Unionist Labour Party has turned out to be a lie – Great British Energy. Labour vowed a brand new sports car. What it delivered was a rusty bike with flat tyres.

Some 50,000 high paying renewable energy jobs were pledged as well as a £300 reduction in energy bills. Now the reality. The CEO, Juergen Maier – based in Manchester – has said there will be 1,000 jobs delivered in 20 years (your report, 3 February). According to Money Saving Expert’s Martin Lewis, energy bills will be going up in April.

The Labour Party's pledge was another expedient that it had no ability or intention of delivering. GB Energy was simply a prop with the Union flag designed to Hoover up the votes of credulous provincial hayseeds. Those incognisant dullards who lap up uncritically any absurdity as long as it asserts the pre-eminence of the Union. The unionists get away with this industrial-scale lying because there is no accountability or consequences for their actions. The Westminster parties now represent a billionaire class that wants to gut all social programmes.

The message that Westminster is sending to Scotland is simple. Work or starve. Doesn't matter your age. Elderly or a child. Sick or disabled. The billionaire fascist class want everyone working hard so they don’t have to. If you can't do that then you have no social value.

This dystopian nightmare, already unfolding before our eyes, will only deepen when Nigel Farage ascends to power, a puppet dancing to the tune of Elon Musk and his ilk. The future they envision is one of unbridled exploitation, where the many suffer so that the few may thrive. And yet the unionist parties continue their charade, peddling lies and empty promises, confident that there will be no reckoning for their crimes. The question is not whether they will be held accountable, but whether the people will ever wake up to the reality of their betrayal.

Alan Hinnrichs, Dundee

Unreliable

For years we have been told by the renewables industry that electricity from wind and solar would be reliable and cheaper.

Well, “reliable” is a laugh. Cheaper? Never in the history of the world have electricity prices gone down. Well that is not quite correct. Fracking in the US abruptly lowered energy prices and strengthened US energy security. So why are we in the UK subsidising the foreign wind turbine owners with £1.65 billion to turn off their turbines when their electricity is not needed? No wonder bills are so high. Why do we not penalise wind turbine owners when they are unable to supply electricity when the wind does not blow and we have to rely on gas, nuclear, wood and the interconnectors? UK electricity prices are now the highest of all “European” countries.

The renewables industry makes unfulfilled promises but the other forms of providing electricity provide reliability.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

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.