THERESA May is already an isolated, risible and pathetic figure cut adrift from reality. The only reason she is still in power is that the Tories don’t want another fratricidal leadership contest whilst the Brexit surrender is being dictated by the EU.

May’s speech to the annual gathering of plutocrats in Davos underscores just how unimportant and irrelevant the UK is internationally. According to reports there were rows and rows of empty seats, and many of those who were present left early. This contrasts with Emanuel Macron, who was treated like a rock star and whom people queued for hours to hear.

A day of reckoning is coming soon for Theresa May. The price she will have to pay for the City of London to still have access to European markets will be having to make a substantial contribution to the EU and allowing the continued free movement of EU nationals. This will lead to a backlash as it will be portrayed by the anti-EU headbangers as a betrayal.

The Hard Brexit faction is an amalgam of political oddballs led by the freakish Jacob Rees-Mogg. It includes Arron Banks, Nigel Farage, George Galloway, Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith. They have a strange fantasy about reestablishing the Empire in a Post-Brexit world.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

NEVER mind the Tories’ refusal to budge on FlagGate apologies. What do you expect from Unionists on both sides of the Border? Their politics are to keep Scotland subservient to the English (very British) view of power in London. Fake news is their fuel ... and will be their downfall.

Alas, like the very beautiful melting snow of last week, their vision of Brexit Britain is rapidly turning to slush (as my grandmother used to say, there is nothing more depressing than a thaw).

On a lighter historical note, my friends in Shetland tell me that in the late 1960s Russian ships used to anchor off Basta in Yell. This was mid-Cold War.

Some of the islanders became very friendly with the Russians. They would row off to the boats and exchange goods and had some cracking ceilidh nights with them. The children tasted Black Russian chocolate for the first time.

The Cold War was never taken very seriously. The language of friendship is not words by meanings. It is an intelligence above language.

Graham Noble
Fort William

GAVIN Williamson, our very own spiderman, says those bad ruskies might kill “thousands and thousands and thousands” of us wiv their big big big bad bad bad naughtiness.

While upping the ante to increase the UK’s military spending, is it possible, meanwhile, for our Secretary of Defence to get a bigger vocabulary?

His recent outburst tell us several things. Mostly it tells us that putting a man in charge of the military who needed to keep a spider on his desk to intimidate colleagues is ludicrous.

Having Gav as Secretary of State for Defence is as crazy as it would be – for example – to have a racist as Foreign Secretary or a man in charge of the environment who had a history of ridiculing experts.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

WE are leaving the top table of the EU where we have representation, votes and a veto to join the American trade area. The only part of the table we will see are the crumbs from our masters, and when the US drums of war start playing we will be dancing to the same tune – poodles again.

Bill Kerr
Cumbernauld

CAN I belatedly point out that Lisa Cameron MP’s constituent (Woman wringly sanctioned for 276 days refused apology by May, The National, January 18) could not have taken out an injunction in Scotland?

An interdict is the Scottish equivalent but is not the same thing as an English injunction, as Maggie Thatcher famously found out at the time of the Spycatcher affair.

Mairead Mackechnie
Bowmore, Isle of Islay

WHY all the subservience to the British nationalists re: the flag scenario? I do believe the lion rampant goes back to Bruce’s time and has no relevance to present-day monarchy.

However, most independent-minded people want rid of the monarchy and its extensions like the House of Lords. It’s cringeworthy hearing that it was OK from the Queen herself, encouraging the validation of her role.

I understand the satisfaction by the SNP when the anti-indys make a fool of themselves (not for the first time) but the responses like “it was fine by her majesty” send a shudder down my spine.

We of course need to carry as much diverse opinion with us to have a majority for independence, but just remember the inequalities in our society when we elevate such people as the royals.

David Gill
Kinross

DELIGHTED to witness the Torygraph, a right-wing Britnat publication, and the Mail (the paper for those who have difficulty reading the Beano), neatly outflanked by our First Minister, after they attacked her with unflagging zeal.

They should be made to do pennants.

James Stevenson
Auchterarder