Stay awake to threat of Donald Trump - your views

Stay awake to threat of Donald Trump

When America elected far-right populist Donald Trump as President, I can remember Nicola Sturgeon coming under fire from pro-Trump, anti-Scottish independence supporters for her calling out Mr Trump's values

Former Prime Minister Theresa May and present PM Boris Johnson and large sections of our mainstream media were prepared to overlook Mr Trump's racist, homophobic and misogynist behaviour because of some abstract 'special relationship' Britain had with America. Apparently Ms Sturgeon's proper stance could not be allowed to supersede profit margins. America does not have relationships, it has interests.

Of course, we have to work with other countries, but if their leaders have different values, we must never compromise ours.

Now that Mr Trump's values have escalated into him trying to overthrow America's recent democratic election, culminating with him inciting his far-right fellow extremists to riot in Washington, Boris Johnson, whose political values are all too similar to those of Mr Trump has been forced by political expediency to offer his condemnation.

Recently the terms 'woke' and 'cancel culture' have come up in our conversations. Woke is seen as an alert to racism etc; we need to stay woke or remain awake. It is a byword for social awareness

Cancel culture, also known as call out culture, describes a form of attempted boycott of individuals because of their opinions which are seen as racist etc. Critics of cancel culture say their right to freedom of speech is under attack. This is one of the reasons the SNP's Hate Crime Bill is under attack.

So was Nicola Sturgeon ‘woke’ and was she right to call out Donald Trump?

Jack Fraser, Clayknowes Drive, Musselburgh.

All I am saying is give Sturgeon a chance

Martin Redfern from Melrose’s contributions to the letters page may be more interesting if the subject matter occasionally varied away from SNP (and Sturgeon) bashing.

May I suggest he look instead at the damaging economic and cultural consequences of Brexit, perhaps - forced through against the democratic wishes of 62% of the Scottish electorate? At the broken promises to farmers, fisher-men and businesses? Or an explanation to students about the scrapping of Erasmus, despite more empty promises?

Or maybe he could look at the cronyism and borderline corruption in handing out PPE contracts to Eton pals of Bumbling Boris and his chums? There's plenty of content to work with if Mr Redfern ever fancied varying his approach. But then, that might not suit his rather too obvious agenda.

Stuart Craig, Edinburgh.

Bearing with hugs

Why am I not allowed to hugmy daughters, my grand-daughters or any other member of family and yet watching football on TV, players hug each other after scoring a goal?

Is it any wonder that so many football clubs have had so many issues with players testing positive. Why has action not been taken to curb this habit?

David Campbell, Saughton Grove, Edinburgh.

New Battle of Britain

We may be living in a free society but there are times when freedom has to be curtailed.

The NHS has enough on its plate dealing with the virus so let’s just try and be a bit more careful.

This situation is similar to Churchill’s Battle of Britain speech, where the population owes so much to so few medical staff.

CJR Fentiman, Polwarth Gardens Edinburgh.