Trump’s response to air crashes suggests Americans don’t understand irony

In light of recent air accidents, Trump is bewailing policies of diversity, equity and inclusion, which, he feels, led to people who may be manifestly unsuitable for top jobs being put into positions of such responsibility that their lamentable inadequacy means their failings will wreck safety systems, with potentially tragic consequences.

It’s often been suggested that Americans don’t understand irony, but I don’t think that’s even once been illustrated more clearly than here.

Julian Self

Wolverton, Milton Keynes

After the air crash in Washington, Donald Trump did manage, briefly, to acknowledge the tragedy of the situation. But he then went on to blame the Biden administration for the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion programme, which, he claimed, was the cause of the crash (”Trump baselessly blames plane crash that killed 67 on DEI and Biden,” Thursday 30 January).

When asked what evidence he had for that statement, given the official investigation had not even begun, he said that it was just common sense.

This latest Trumpian nonsense marks the man as not only a substandard human being but an incompetent politician. Can we hope that there might be a silver lining, that at least some of his supporters will recognise that?

Susan Alexander

Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire

Congratulations to the Chinese for producing an allegedly cheaper and more cost-effective AI system (”DeepSeek has blown the AI competition wide open – and that’s great news for the UK”, Friday 31 January). In using open-source software, they can make the code freely available to everyone and undercut the “closed source” code of major companies.

In the IT world, this is exactly what the Linux computer operating system did, and this spread to many other areas, including the Android operating system, which challenged Apple. Indeed, open-source software can be found in all sorts of devices – TVs and set-top boxes, to name but two. It has undercut the business models of many large companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.

Open source can also be seen as safer, as millions of eyes worldwide can examine the code and expose any dangers. Contributors are also expected to donate their improvements back to the master code, thus improving the platform for everyone. Open source has its own licensing system to ensure all “play ball” with the code and has successfully challenged the dominance of large organisations that would prefer to keep their code private and expensive.

Steve Barnes

Downe, Kent

Olivia Petter's piece on how women are made to feel uncomfortable in gyms, especially the weights area (”Of course women suffer ‘gym-phobia’ – has anyone been in a gym lately?“, Saturday 1 February), doesn't surprise me given I have been attending gyms for 23 years.

I've noticed more women tend to go to classes to exercise, and if they come into the sauna, steam or jacuzzi to relax, they tend to come with friends. As gyms have become more than men flexing their muscles with weights, it seems some men haven’t flexed any brain cells to realise their attitudes towards women are unhealthy.

Kartar Uppal

Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

In 2023, when “continuity candidate” Humza Yousaf won the SNP leadership contest, we realised, despite her denials, that he was Nicola Sturgeon’s preferred candidate. Indeed, she assured us he would be “an outstanding leader and first minister”, gushing on about how proud she was “to have him succeed me”.

Yousaf is now largely remembered for sowing the seeds of his demise by clumsily dismantling the Bute House power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens in 2024. And consequently, Sturgeon seemingly made a dramatic U-turn in her view of Yousaf (”Sturgeon: Yousaf’s decision to dump Greens from government was ‘catastrophic’,” Friday 31 January). She now strongly criticises his decision-making, describing his actions regarding the Greens as “catastrophic” and “wrong”.

With fair-weather friends such as Sturgeon, who needs enemies?

Martin Redfern

Melrose, Roxburghshire