Be nice to Trump

Theresa May has yet to realise one cannot be a bridge builder and a bridge burner. In fact, by distancing us from both the EU and the Trump White House, she’s making the UK look increasingly lonely and forlorn. There remains a postimperial angst in these islands which lurks in the current debate about our place in the world and was cruelly exploited by the snake-oil salesmen who led us into the Brexit catastrophe.

Dean Acheson, perhaps the most perceptive post-war US secretary of state, rightly said that: “Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.” In the end we not only found one role, we found several. One was based on our close attachment to the superpower that replaced us and while that cloying cliché “special relationship” is best avoided, our alliance with the US did give us increased leverage in the world.

The other key relationship was with the EU. Our political and economic links to the EU enhanced our value to the US as an ally while our linguistic and cultural ties to the US gave us traction within Europe. Oscar Wilde observed: “To lose one parent may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” Brexit may be Brexit, but for Mrs May to treat a US president like a naughty child is beyond absurd! (REV DR) JOHN CAMERON Howard Place

St Andrews