Trump’s threatening of Iran is outrageously hypocritical given his stance on other world leaders

The US can no longer straddle the line between deciding which despot to embrace and which requires regime change. The US cannot say that the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen demand “regime change” while sitting down to state dinners with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and North Korea. America cannot stand before the world community and declare Saddam Hussein a ruthless dictator “thought” to have weapons of mass destruction and therefore warranted to be overthrown and executed while selling weapons of war to the Saudi prince as questions swirl regarding his alleged complicity in the brutal murder of author and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. America cannot say Muammar Gaddafi was a brutal, monstrous ruler then meet with the leader of North Korea whose cruel treatment of his people is legendary.

America’s propensity for going to war must be met with serious reservations. The world community has a responsibility – an obligation – to stand up to the greatest military power on earth and say: “Show us the proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that war with Iran is necessary.” Otherwise, like Iraq, it’s really about going to war with Iran for its oil.

Wilma Tracy Nadeau​
Los Angeles, California

In response to the letter criticising Sir Kim Darroch, maybe the leaked communication by the British embassy in America was not meant for the US president at all but in fact meant for the present British government.

Peter Minshall​
Argyll

Surely if the material in the Darroch cables held by Isabel Oakeshott is so innocuous (as suggested in Patrick Cockburn’s article), the Foreign Office should just have tweeted “fake news” and not given it the credibility it did not deserve.

Frank Donald
Edinburgh

After being very active all my life, I woke up at 1am to find that I could not move from the waist down. From then on, everyone I met or spoke to had only one aim – to care for me.

This being the NHS, no one wanted to know my financial situation or my ethnic status. I was a human being in distress who needed them. They were there for me, from the cleaner at 7am through to all the caring, nursing and medical staff. The culture is the same – caritas (love for all), or the cumbersome English, TLC. It is in the DNA of the NHS.

This enveloping care has helped me cope with this latest phase of the bone cancer when a tumour invaded the spine and paralysed me from the chest down. After four weeks I am out of bed, wheelchair supplied by the NHS at no cost to me. In six months I believe I shall be walking again.

Of course, open-hearted, loving people are found in private organisations too. I have watched the same selfless care being given in a care home, but this quality cannot be dependent on the bottom line (cost).

How many people would be prepared to pay more for the NHS and social care? Stand up and fight for this beacon of civilisation in a darkening world.

Sue
Bristol

It was soul-destroying to see the prospective PMs totally unable to stand up to forthright questioning by Andrew Neil.

The interviews should have been a showcase of the attributes that each candidate had in order to win the election to the highest office in the country; instead they were caught out by simple questioning.

My heart sank even further when Boris’ bluster finally disappeared to expose a non-entity. A candidate that ought not to be accepted by the British people for any public office let alone as PM.

Jeremy Hunt crumbled under the pressure of a great interviewer. If Jeremy was negotiating our exit from the EU, heaven knows what the outcome would be!

Neither Boris nor Jeremy gave a statesmanlike account of themselves and they have not filled me with any hope of an EU exit settlement which will be on time, to the benefit of the British people or in the interests of future trading arrangements with either the rest of the world or the EU.

What have the “Brexiteers” done to the future of this once great country?

Keith Poole
Basingstoke

For muscle toning, general all-round fitness and the fight against obesity and diabetes there is no need to visit a fancy gym or invest in expensive gear. Everything required is already installed in most houses – stairs. Obviously just walking up them is beneficial aerobically, but they are also perfect for developing upper body strength by doing press ups on them.

The 35-degree pitch of average stairs means that an individual can build up accordingly. For example, standing on the bottom step, lean forward until your hands are resting on the tread that is level with your chest and slowly push up. After a few days you may wish to attempt two push ups, building up to three or more. For the more adventurous this simple system of ‘Stair Strength’ can be incorporated into your daily activities, until ascending the stairs doing a press up on the first ten treads becomes automatic.

This method, even if ascending with only one press up, can result in 50 or more press ups a day! Incredibly, doing just two on each tread would result in 700 a week, 2,800 a month and 36,500 in a year! The results can be, as you can well imagine, remarkable.

Brian McCusker​
York