Letters: Who can lead us against Trump and Putin?

Donald Trump reminds me of the conjugation of a very irregular verb: I am a genius, you are an eccentric, he/she is completely round the twist.

Whatever Starmer tells him, the UK needs to be fully engaged with the EU, for our own safety and security, prosperity, and of course the integrity and democracy of Ukraine and any other country bordering Russia. Appeasing Trump is as dangerous as appeasing Putin.
Rex Nesbit

Having just reread the last chapters of Martin Gilbert’s The Wilderness Years about Churchill’s calls of warning from his isolation in the 1930s against appeasement with Hitler, now is the time to ask: where is there a Churchill for Europe against the twin threats of Putin and Trump?

I may not have liked Churchill’s politics more widely, but Hitler knew that when the old beast was reluctantly taken into the cabinet – too late, after the invasion of Poland – that Britain would finally become a serious enemy to Nazism. Who now to lead against Trumpism and Putinism?
Chris Clode

Trump is not the “new sheriff in town”, as JD Vance says – he is the anti-hero played by Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, riding out of town and leaving the citizens to shoot it out with the villain. He is also like the son of “Man Mountain” in Akira Kurosawa’s film Kagemusha, who squanders his father’s inheritance and the peace his presence has brought to the land (Europe in this case), bringing it down with needless conflict while trying to pretend he is a strong man – who is obviously a waster.
Tom Sandy

I understand JD Vance’s speech in Munich was created by AI – Astonishing Ignorance.
Phil Green

Re James Ball on USAID (TNE #424). Contrasting Elon Musk with Bill Gates is instructive. Gates is using his vast fortune derived from Microsoft to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. With the support of Warren Buffett, polio has been largely eliminated, the battle against malaria continues, girls’ education in family planning is progressing, and death rates are falling.

Meanwhile, Musk is revealing himself to be a thoroughly self-centred individual who uses his vast wealth to support right wing parties like Alternative für Deutschland and Donald Trump’s MAGA Republicans.

Destroying USAID will vastly reduce the US’s soft power and influence.
David Hogg 
North Somerset

Most of the consumption of course is done by the wealthiest 10%. We now have the unedifying spectacle of the world’s richest man stealing food from the mouths of the poorest through his closure of USAID. How about we start by taxing the rich?
Gerri Ellis

In view of the random mass firings of federal workers in the US under Musk’s dodgy DOGE chaos machine (Department of Government Efficiency) and the resulting dangers, should our government be warning travellers about going to the US?

Staff at the agency in control of nuclear safety – accidentally sacked. Health staff monitoring bird flu – accidentally sacked.

The anti-vaxx message promoted during the run-up to the election, and now with the man appointed to be in charge of US health – Mr Brain Worm Kennedy – the anti-vaxx message seems to be paying off with a serious measles outbreak in southern states. 

There have already been five serious domestic air crashes with fatalities – the first happening just hours after the infamous DEI purges of federal workers. Are we going to wait until travellers from here come to grief, or act now?
Amanda Baker 
Edinburgh, Scotland

Cheap cuisine
Marie Le Conte needs to get out and about a bit more to find good, cheap French restaurants (Dilettante, TNE #424). Close to where I live in south London, we have a delightful family-run restaurant, Deli Boutique, where main courses are under £15. They do the most delicious French bread sandwiches, pastries and loads more.

An old favourite of mine was L’artiste Musclé in Shepherd Market, Mayfair, but I think prices have gone up there a little now, as has the surrounding area. Then there is the Gazette Battersea where I really did have the best steak tartare ever – bon appétit!
James R Marsh 
London SW11

Marie Le Conte has been out of France too long. You can easily pay €23 for merguez frites here.

And yes, ingredients can be difficult to source across the Channel, but it cuts both ways. Try buying anything gluten-free in southern France without an overdraft.
John Ireland

I just came away from a disgusting meal in a renowned brasserie across from the Gare du Lyon – the Européen – so it’s not just in the UK.
Eile Gibson

Out of step
In “Three steps to help Starmer beat Reform” (TNE #424), Paul Mason refers to “the non-trivial matter of seeing people parade through the streets shouting support for Hamas”. 
I presume he is referring to the pro-Palestinian marches that have occurred regularly since Israel’s disproportionate response to the horrifying attack by Hamas. 

I expect accurate reporting, not misrepresentation, from the New European. It’s been clear from the start that the pro-Palestinian marchers – some of them Jews – do not support Hamas, except for a small minority, who are arrested for their views. 

They are protesting on behalf of a people who have suffered appalling injustice since 1948 when Israel was founded and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes. Western leaders turned their backs and have done nothing about subsequent violent, illegal land grabs perpetrated by Israel.
Catherine Wilson Eiles 
Llangadog, Carmarthenshire

A handful of people may have been arrested for shouting illegal things, but the truth is that millions of citizens of every race, religion, age, colour, creed and political persuasion have marched through the streets shouting their opposition to Israel’s genocide on the Palestinian people.
Richard Riddle

Shark attack
I was surprised and delighted to read Jonathan Jones’s “Shark repellent” in TNE #424. It raised hope of a turn in a tide of superficial critique since the Sensation show in 1997.

The notoriously disruptive intent of these young artists ensured widespread publicity across the media landscape and the Royal Academy was rewarded with unusually high visitor numbers. It was perhaps an early display of effective populism.

Whatever the ambition of an artist, it is the curator, the critic, the dealer and the wealthy patron who assign status and market value. Jones suggests that outrageousness as conveyed in the work of Anselm Kiefer is what is needed to recover meaningful vitality in the arts. But it seems to me that the passive/aggressive nature of such outrage is easily sucked into the status quo as a commoditised “new”. 

One might look for a visual art practice that is more thoughtfully attentive in its searching and testing, but such art evades easy curatorial messaging and is thus commonly bypassed. Similarly, how much well-considered grass roots activity within society at large flows under the radar? Consequently, we are left with a dismal picture of national incapacity. Time for the tide to turn?
Bridget Heriz 
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Jonathan Jones’s excellent article on Damien Hirst reminds me of being in Tate Modern as the last Hirst exhibition was about to close. 

I didn’t see the exhibition, but found myself standing outside its entrance with a row of cases stacked ready to take the paintings. These always bear a paper label saying “EMPTY”, which is removed when the relevant work has been put in. 

“Mmmm, “I said, “describes the work very well indeed!” I heard a chuckle behind me from one of the attendants, who clearly agreed.
David Cockayne 
Lymm, Cheshire

Explosive tweet
In “How to destroy your life with a single tweet”, Martin Fletcher wrote, “Had the police not prosecuted…” But the police don’t prosecute.

The job of the police is to investigate and to hand a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS says: “A CPS lawyer will then review all the information and decide whether we can bring a prosecution.”
Phil Jones 
Bourne End, Buckinghamshire

Arctic scramble
Peter Trudgill provides a fascinating overview of past attempts by various nations to obtain Greenland (TNE #423). It is interesting to note that Britain, too, has a history of eyeing up Greenland. Towards the end of the first world war, there was a joint British-Canadian proposal to take the Arctic island from Denmark, and turn it into a province of Canada. As with Peter Trudgill’s examples, no attempt was made to consult with Greenland’s indigenous population. 

It was fear of American criticism (oh, the irony) and worry over tipping neutral Denmark away from its tacit support for the allies that ended this British scramble for the Arctic.
Ben Markham 
Essex

Plus ça change
I was intrigued by Gary Nunn’s article on social mobility and university places (TNE #423).

In 1952 I had just got good marks for O-levels but was only able to enter the sixth form at my girls’ grammar school because my parents obtained what was called a clothing grant. I didn’t have my own room, just an alcove of my grandmother’s bedroom big enough for a bed and a bookcase/desk my mother made from a wooden orange box. 

When the careers mistress showed us university prospectuses, I decided Girton College, Cambridge was for me. The school supported me with extra lessons, and in the fourth term I took the entrance exam, had an interview (where I saw a woman in trousers for the first time!) and was offered a place. A state grant from Blackpool Council made it possible to accept, though holiday jobs were essential.

The staff at Girton were all very kind and I felt at home as soon as I arrived. I soon made friends with other grammar-school entrants. 

Looking back, it all seems very simple. Factors in favour were good teaching at both primary and secondary level, parental support, the absence of TV and digital devices, goodwill on the part of the college, and of course financial support from the country, less than 10 years after the end of a devastating war. 

It is extremely sad that a problem that seemed to have been solved so long ago is, as Gary says, only now “slowly changing”.
Dorothy Woolley 
Newark, Notts

BELOW THE LINE
Comments, conversation and correspondence from our online subscribers

Ros Taylor on the waste of North Sea oil revenues (TNE #424) was a very interesting article with lots of threads to be drawn. The sooner we have a proper dialogue about the magnitude of the catastrophes wrought on this country by Thatcher, the better.
Norma Spark

Worth noting that Harold Macmillan criticised Thatcher’s use of the oil money to fund unemployment benefits in his 1985 “selling the family silver” speech.
David Marshland

Can I correct an all-too-common mistake perpetuated by Ros Taylor?

“The Shetlands” is an imaginary place referred to mainly by the English, and believed to be in a box in the Moray Firth thanks to the lack of space on most maps. The island group of which she writes is called Shetland or the Shetland Isles by those who live there. It is way north of the Moray Firth.
Colin Hayward

Re: “The fisherman who faced down GB News” (TNE #424). It must be remembered that the 2016 vote was Remain or Leave. The ballot paper said nothing about the severity of Brexit that was then unnecessarily imposed upon us by Johnson, Davis et al.
Michael Vaughton

I’m not in fishing or agriculture, but my small business has also lost all its mainland EU business since Brexit. To me it was obvious that voting Leave would give us problems in trading with the EU, which is why I have always been a strong Remainer.

Even after the referendum, I thought sense would prevail and we would end up with a soft Brexit. I was wrong. The Tories wanted the hardest possible Brexit, to the detriment of my small business, the fisherman in the article, thousands of other businesses and the economy as a whole. To my dying day, I will not forgive what these people have done to the UK.
Peter Holpin

While I sometimes struggle with Philip Ball’s scientific discussions 
(my fault, I happily concede), “The scientific reality of Trump 2.0” (TNE #424) was scientifically accurate, and screamed to be shared widely.
Brian Hickey

Enjoyed your Great Life of Marco Pantani (TNE #424). Excellent to read about a human in an inhuman sport.
Tony Mottram

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