THE US will want business access to the NHS in any post-Brexit trade deal, the US ambassador has said, prompting anger from politicians and campaigners before Donald Trump’s visit to, or assault on, the UK this week. There is a serious warning arising from this.

Trump’s praise of Farage and Johnson is an indication that in a no-deal Brexit the hotline to the White House will be red hot. Trump and his acolytes will call the shots.

The failed PM’s fawning praise for the US just before she is dumped by her party, and the feting of Trump by the Palace, is a slur on our society. How much more must we Scots thole from the UK “elites” as they deal with the obnoxious US under Donald Trump? Given the example of how how Trump destroys treaties and agreements at a whim, he is no saviour. In addition, his advisors such as John Bolton are dangerous closet demagogues. Bolton’s answer to Iran and its so-called bomb is simply “to bomb Iran”!

Notice how the softening-up process has begun with flattery to appeal to the fantasies of the Empire2 brigade. Bolton has praised the UK as a “world power”! The blimps in Whitehall will be raring to go. Hunt, the Foreign Secretary has already set out his stall to double defence spending to stand alongside the US in our special relationship.

Westminster and the Windsors are engaging disgracefully in receiving this US President in view of his public interventions in our affairs of state already!

The public protests taking place must be heeded. Those protesting are not going to bow and scrape in the presence of Donald Trump. Governments and palaces do tumble and fall.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

IT comes as no surprise that Trump wants the UK to crash out of the EU without a deal, as it makes it easier for US companies to asset-strip the UK’s public sector. And while we’re in the UK all of Scotland’s public sector, including our NHS, is under threat. The US ambassador admitted in a TV interview that access to the NHS was a key target in any trade deal between the UK and the USA. Even if this can be restricted to only England’s NHS, the knock-on effects on drug prices and public investment in the NHS will have a negative impact on Scotland’s NHS. Without the backing of the EU, the UK will continue to be picked off by larger states such as the USA and China.

Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

THE shambles of post-imperial, self-obsessed, Tory politicians clambering over each other to become PM of a broken and leaderless country is shameful and humiliating as President Trump twitters into the UK.

The fact is the Scottish Parliament has done more in 20 short years for the people of Scotland than several centuries of rule from a distant London government, ignorant and disinterested in the wellbeing of Scotland, other than its grouse moors, deer, whisky and of course its wealth of resources.

It is now self-evident, following the EU election results in the UK, that Scotland and England are taking very different paths. While England flounders in the dark mire of Brexit, Scotland follows the bright light of independence.

Grant Frazer
Newtonmore

THE last time Trump was in the UK the policing cost £18 million. That is money that could be spent on the homeless, the poor and disabled.

Stevie, Motherwell
via text

BACK in 2010 my daughter taught English for a year in a Shanghai secondary school. She never initiated any discussion of politics. On one occasion the pupils themselves expressed dislike of their political system. When she asked for examples they grumbled about the “lack of political freedom” and about one-party government. My daughter then steered the conversation away to something innocuous.

One day a boy asked her out of the blue if she knew anything about “something bad” which his grandmother had told him had happened on Tiananmen Square in 1989. He said his grandmother had refused to tell him anything further.

None of the rest of the class appeared to know anything about it.

My daughter again diverted the conversation. However she brought it up later in the staff room.

The Western staff members of course knew all about it. The Chinese members of staff claimed to have no idea what she was talking about. For the younger members of staff at least their ignorance was probably genuine.

David Pratt’s column (After Tiananmen, June 2) shows that the erasure of this episode from the Chineses history books history is as complete as ever.

We can only hope that the onward development of social media will make the rewriting of history more difficult all over the world.

Including here.

Mary McCabe
Glasgow