Circusbanpraise

cutor Archibald Cox, who had authorised the release of tapes of conversations Nixon had in the Oval Office over a number of years.

Out, too, went attorneygeneral Elliot Richardson, prompting one commentator to say that there was “a whiff of the Gestapo in the air”. The rearguard action the president was to fight over this matter eventually led to his resignation in August 1974, but not after a number of serious questions had been asked about the American system of government.

Trump’s sacking of James Comey would appear at first to have all the ingredients of the Watergate ignominy – the current international problems particularly in Korea, the distasteful treatment of a senior law enforcement official, the lack of any credible rationale for the decision.

Yet some allowance has to be made for the new style, for good or ill, that the new president brings to government. He may still find out the hard way that running a business conglomerate and running a government require different approaches.

Nixon’s mistake was not just a matter of paranoia – he felt he could use his landslide majority to settle old scores and abuse the authority of government in ways that almost ruptured public belief in the system. President Trump’s is one of style, a style most European observers find difficult to accept, but still has some enthusiastic supporters on the other side of the Atlantic. BOB TAYLOR Shiel Court Glenrothes Much respect to the Scottish Government for listening to the public and introducing a bill to ban travelling circuses from using wild animals (The Scotsman, 12 May).