“THE ball is in the EU’s court,” says Theresa May (“May set to tell MPs successful Brexit deal can be done if the EU is flexible enough over future trade”, The Herald, October 9) One wonders what is happening in No 10. Is it aiming to shift blame on to the EU because it is not being fair and acceding to No 10’s entitlement to discuss trade issues before exit matters have been concluded?

So far, nothing substantive or definitive has come from David Davis’s team on the three key issues and it looks like constructive ambiguity still is in place. A change of tone outwardly from Theresa May has been noted, but she still stated between coughs that no deal is better than a bad deal.

The lady who stated haughtily that she could be b***** difficult, strong and stable has now simply deflated. She is now weak and vulnerable within her party. When all talk is about how long she might stay or whether she will lead the party into next election, then the ground is already shifting.

It is a sorry spectacle we see before us. Sections of the mainstream media see the exiting from the EU as a “war” to be won. References like Agincourt, Crecy and Waterloo pop up and give the impression that the UK, or sections of it at least, are stuck in a glorious delusion.

Throwing in the towel, as Mrs May has now done, is an admission of total inadequacy. No 10 has failed even to formulate substantive proposals for presentation. The UK Government opted to give up its already favourable bespoke relationship within the EU. The EU will simply sit it out now and the UK Government and society will have to accept the consequences of its 21st century foreign policy folly.

John Edgar

4 Merrygreen Place, Stewarton.

ONE of the most pernicious tales woven by the Brexiters was the one where the EU would turn into a United States of Europe (something, ironically, like a bigger version of the UK), with all sovereignty vested in a centralised Brussels bureaucracy.

But this is shown up by the assertions of the EU that an independent Scotland and an independent Catalonia would be outside the EU, seeking re-entry. If the EU truly wanted to destroy the constituent nation state, then it would welcome Scotland, Catalan, Wallonia, Flanders et al, straight into the bosom of the EU as member countries. It doesn’t.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.

ALTHOUGH Theresa May’s speech to the Conservative Party conference has been described as a disaster, she was actually extremely lucky (“Coughing and cruel joke turn ‘Dream' to nightmare”, The Herald, October 5). Getting a cough, and the letters falling off the slogan on the wall behind her, could happen to anyone.

Being handed her P45 supposedly on behalf of Boris Johnson told a fundamental truth about the splits within the Tory leadership. These incidents have allowed the Prime Minister to spin the disaster as simply unfortunate. Yet if they had not occurred, the media attention would have been on her speech itself, and that would have revealed just how ineffectual and pointless her Government has become. Including the lack of checks on the delegates to the Tory conference, Mrs May is no doubt regretting the cut she imposed on Greater Manchester Police's budget.

Her plan to resume council house building will create just 5,000 houses a year – when more than a million households are on waiting lists. Spread evenly across the country, that’s equivalent to building 50 houses a year in a place the size of Edinburgh. it's not really going to change the housing shortage in Edinburgh is it?

She offered five times as much money for the Help to Buy scheme, cynically known among Conservative MPs as “Help to Buy Votes”, which appears to help first-time buyers but actually inflates the prices of new houses before the buyers are “helped”. It’s like a supermarket which puts up its prices one week and then advertises £1 off the next. In reality the money simply inflates the profits of the building industry, so it’s another giveaway to the City of London.

And her promise to cut energy bills was only a watered-down version of Labour’s policy to tackle profiteering by energy companies. No one who knows the Conservative Party can imagine it putting the public before company profits. So despite the bad publicity, the Prime Minister is lucky that the media response to her speech was dominated by discussion of Strepsils and pranksters. Discussing what she actually said would have been far more damaging.

Phil Tate,

Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh.

TRY as they might the media clamour for the head of the Prime Minister has so far failed and so it should. The incessant speculation about her immediate future is fuelled by the media’s desire for headlines. It is tiresome to watch each news bulletin or read the front pages of most newspapers (“Pressure grows on May”, The Herald, October 9) eulogising about her demise. Perhaps her conference speech was overshadowed by events out with her control, however the fact that these have been highlighted over and over again with little or no focus on the positive elements contained within, combined with the constant preoccupation with Boris Johnson, insults the electorate’s intelligence.

It is also not her fault that the country voted to leave the EU and to constantly gripe about her so-called inability to negotiate the terms of our settlement is to do her a gross injustice. Perhaps the media would be better getting behind the Government and our Prime Minister, whatever their political persuasion, in an effort to show a united front instead of the negativity which can be found at every turn.

Christopher H Jones,

25 Ruthven Avenue, Giffnock.

IT’S fascinating to note that according to the First Minister, the case for an independent Scotland “has never been greater” (“Sturgeon refuses to rule out fresh independence referendum by 2021”, The Herald, October 9). I expect that the more than two million Scots who voted against her party’s primary objective, her 21 MPs who lost their seats in June and more than one million other Scots who voted to leave the EU would strongly disagree with her assessment.

Quite how this need “has never been greater” is not explained to us. There has been no “Brexit bounce” that the SNP anticipated. Dissatisfaction with the SNP’s decade of power is growing, and if not for the support of the Scottish Green Party the SNP couldn’t even pass legislation for another independence referendum anyway.

David Bone.

1 Ailsa Street West, Girvan.