Readers letters: Actually, the UK should emulate Canada in its response to Trump

No it was not Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy in the White House, with their cringeworthy crawling at the “Court of Emperor Trump”. The excerpt is from the Richard Curtis comedy Love Actually, with Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister.

If only Sir Keir would come out with similar words and emulate the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney. He looks likely to cancel Canada’s eye-watering multi million-dollar contract for F35B stealth fighter jets and look at the Swedish Saab and Eurofighter.

When the PM recently announced in parliament the increase in defence spending, he said that it would translate into British jobs, skills and innovation promoting economic growth. Well, buying more Eurofighters would emulate Germany, Italy and Spain, as his party’s biggest union backer, Unite, is demanding. The RAF Typhoon is built by BAE in Lancashire; the F35B in Texas. Furthermore, the Typhoon is a superior aircraft with better range, air defences and without the failures in critical systems of the Lockheed Martin aircraft. This needs to be in the Strategic Defence Review. It would be an act of self-harm to buy more F35Bs. Instead money should be diverted to the development of the Tempest stealth fighter.

Finally, if the strange President Trump boast, on social media, that he could “switch off” the aircraft – ie not provide the data to use them – is genuine then buying any more would be a dangerous act of self-harm. We can no longer be dependent on American technology when our ally has told us it is now up to us to defend Europe’s borders.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

No empathy

Donald Trump looked very pleased with himself after announcing the new tariff rates imposed on countries across the world. He looked like a child who had “got his own back” on a sibling who had stolen his favourite toy. I felt a strong urge to send him to bed without supper. Then I remembered his neglectful childhood.

His comment about how a renewed American economy, about to be boosted by new broad tariffs, was going to be “the best anywhere in the world” was typical hyperbole from the president. He’s responding like the child who was emotionally neglected by his parents. As an adult, he needs to get the attention and praise which he never received from them.

His niece, Mary L Trump, describes the President’s father, Fred Trump, as a “high-functioning sociopath”, who was incapable of being loving towards his children. It’s little wonder that his son grew up to have little empathy for others.

Carolyn Taylor, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

Time will tell

All cars imported into the USA – at present 47 per cent of the market – are now subject to a 25 per cent tariff, and this “will apply to engines, transmissions, power train parts and electrical components”. The Wall Street Journal commissioned mechanics to strip down America's best-selling vehicle – a Ford F150 pick-up. They laid out its component parts and labelled them by country of origin. The wheels and alternator are made in Mexico, half shafts in Canada, tyres in Korea. The automatic transmission comprises a myriad of parts, each one of which would have to be identified to see if it were of foreign manufacture – a highly bureaucratic task needed for every make of vehicle assembled in the USA. The F150, they found, is made up of parts from 24 countries.The WSJ calculates that, as result of Trump's tariffs the cost of cars in the USA will rise by an average of more than $6,000.

Reacting to President Trump’s Rose Garden speech imposing these worldwide tariffs, Professor Scott Lucas said, “This was the most economic illiterate speech I have ever heard” and “full of lies”. Professor Jeffrey Sachs said Trump “will wreck the international trading system”. Republican Senator Rand Paul said “tariffs are taxes on the American people”. Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said “Canada’s relationship with America will never be the same ever again”. Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the International Monetary Fund, said that the tariffs pose “a significant risk to the world economy”. Meanwhile, President Trump doubled down by saying “the markets are going to boom, the stocks are going to boom, the country is going to boom”. Time will tell who is right and who is wrong.

William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Patriotic fervour

My grandfather Thomas Ritchie Ovenstone, after whom I am named, was involved in both the the First and Second World Wars and died in 1980.

However, I use my middle name Peter because his eldest son was a wireman aboard HMS Neptune and was lost at sea on war service on 19 December, 1941.

This idea that they would have been concerned about whether I considered myself Scottish or British (Letters, 4 April) is something I find a bit strange as a reason for keeping the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as one.

They fought fascism to give us the freedom to choose how we regard ourselves, not as something that preserves forever the UK.

As they often say “you can ca’ me what you want as long as you don't ca’ me ower” and I am sure my late relatives in similar spirit care not a jot whether I am unionist or nationalist.

Find reasons for keeping the Union together rather than some form of British nationalist patriotism in any argument over independence, please.

Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire

History’s value

George Morton (Letters, 4 April) thinks that history should be dropped from the school curriculum because ‘kids can find out so much online nowadays’. One could say the same about other subjects, for example geography or languages.

Certainly, there is much excellent history in the public domain, not least the podcast by Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland, The Rest is History.

The problem is that so much of what passes for “history” online is propaganda material from an interest group, not least from political interest groups. This is particularly the case with Scottish history, where Scots are heroes or victims and “the English” are the villains. One would hope that history teaching in schools does not take that lazy way out.

The study of history is not simply an end in itself. It should teach what we now call “transferable skills” and prepare us for the challenges of life. Even turning up to a class – with absenteeism rife – is a transferable skill. History is above all about problem solving. Every question, in class, in an essay or an exam, is a problem to be solved. The short question “Why was there a revolution in France in 1789?” requires analysis of the terms involved: why was it a revolution? Why did it happen in France (not somewhere else)? Why did it happen in 1789 (not at another time)? The choice of materials for that analysis is an exercise in discrimination. History at its best requires the skill set of a detective, tracking down, sifting, evaluating and applying evidence to the case to be argued.

What could be more important and interesting than the past of our own species?

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Haud yer wheesht

Long ago, when I was still lazy enough to work for a boss instead of for myself, one such had been a professor of philosophy and a devotee of Wittgenstein’s proposition that there are no problems without solutions, the latter appearing when the matter is properly and fully understood.

This truth strikes home every time I read or hear the usual suspect critics and their carping about just about everything they find wrong with today. As a result I, perhaps alone although I hope not, weep for Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The insults and sniping that poor woman has to try to ignore must indeed be a trial.

My point is that were all those crass, destructive and negative remarks necessarily to be accompanied with/by polite, helpful, positive, constructive and practical solutions (as my ex-boss prof would have demanded), then they might just be worth hearing or reading. The prof’s and my suggestion for all critics of any and all activities or professions is thus: “If you could do better, then prove it. If not, haud yer wheesht!”

Tim Flinn, Edinburgh

Wing and a prayer

I would like to thank Richard Perry for sharing his lovely photo of the song thrush in his garden (Scotsman, 4 April), his first sighting for a decade. It was a welcome relief, as he says, from all the current worldwide gloom of the human news.

It is certainly considerably more than a decade since my own sighting of any thrush and indeed, far too many other species, not least starlings and finches.

Despite the attraction of a well-filled birdbath in my small city garden, apart from a single sparrow and blackbird, my only visitors are magpies and pigeons.

I sorely miss the beautiful sound of any dawn chorus and the nesting of blue tits in my bird house. Sadly, it seems, the worldwide gloom of human news must include the story of birds. That song thrush in Richard Perry's garden may be a sign of hope.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

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