I FEAR Mark Smith may be keeping the wrong kind of company. His column is headlined "Let’s not get too sanctimonious – Donald Trump is a bit like us" (The Herald, July 16).

Really? Not in my wide circle of family, friends and business associates do I know anyone who remotely demonstrates those awful, malign traits the President routinely displays, as evidenced in his recent "tour de farce", first at the G7 summit Canada, then in Singapore with "Little Rocket Man" Kim Jong-un, followed by the G7 in Canada, Nato in Paris, Theresa May and the Queen in England, his golf excursion at Turnberry, culminating in his sickly – and deeply worrying – meetings with the master puppeteer Vladimir Putin.

Not a single person in my (admittedly limited) circle exhibits any of the many personality defects the 45th President of the USA routinely reveals; his is the classic Narcissus character who can only view the world, and those of us with the temerity to occupy it alongside him and his cohorts, through his own one-eyed, jaundiced and prejudicial prism.

As one former very senior US diplomat said in the slipstream of Mr Trump's ill-advised and poorly thought-out discourse in Helsinki, The world of POTUS represents the realisation of the Orwellian vision, arriving 70-plus years late but arriving nonetheless.

Where friend is now foe, tolerance becomes prejudice, wrong becomes right and vice versa, diktat replacing dialogue, to compare Mr Trump with the vast majority of right-minded, well-meaning and even-handed Scots, I find the parallel drawn with the owner of Turnberry and Menie to be almost as offensive as much of the tendentious and chauvinistic claptrap that emanates from that small, pursed and puerile mouth and Twitter feed on a daily basis.

And for Mr Smith to ask: "And didn't we all have to put-up with the ultimate blowhard as First Minister from 2007 to 2014," thus likening Alex Salmond to Mr Trump is as disingenuous as it is insulting; sure, Mr Salmond was, and remains far from perfect, like most Scots I know; he is intelligent, savvy, engaging, witty and on occasions, self-deprecating, attributes unknown to the current US President.

Perhaps Mr Smith needs to get out a little bit more and sample opinion from across the political and social spectrum to better understand how Scots people in general and Herald readers in particular think, talk and behave and the altruistic attitudes our country holds dear.

Meanwhile, were I to have one question to put to Mr Trump, it would be: "Your mother, as you never cease to remind us, emigrated from the Western Isles to the United States in 1929 – whether legally or illegally is another matter – so, 89 years later, what has changed?'

Mike Wilson,

Lochhill Farm Cottages, Longniddry, East Lothian.

WE have had more than our fair share of gaffes from Donald Trump during his travels and his level of cringeworthiness remains relatively unchallenged (“Trump partly climbs down over claims of no Russian vote meddling”, The Herald, July 18).

We should be grateful that our own Duke of Edinburgh has had the good grace (forgive the pun) to retire from public life. His Royal Highness has represented us for many years and though most of his private conversations with public dignitaries are not allowed to be reported it has been revealed that some comments have reached "Trump level". Everything from the "slitty eyes " comment in 1986 to his description of young people being "ignorant" at the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh awards ceremony,to name only a few.

The anomaly which still exists though is that we still have unelected representatives acting on our behalf by dint of their birth which is both worrying and undemocratic. We can only speculate as to whether the their duties are of any real value in these austere times.

On the other hand the United States appear to have elected someone whose tact is only surpassed by his diplomacy. The only sad but important difference is that unlike our wealthy privileged "Firm ", his time is limited.

Tina Oakes,

Hanover Court, Stonehaven.