Ignorance could prove dangerous

As a result I, and the rest of my fellow Scots, have pretty much the same freedoms, opportunities and privileges as my beloved fellow countrymen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with whom I am honoured to have worked, served, celebrated and unfortunately mourned alongside – and I love them all!

They are generally no more enamoured with Westminster than we are, but it is stupid to “throw the baby out with the bath water”!

Combining an adjective with desirable connotations such as “civic” with the noun “nationalism” does not alter the predominantly dark history of the latter in Europe.

As for the unlisted “levers of finance” that Mr Macari and SNP espouse, I await a description of these life-changing, inspired, solid, guaranteed, successful plans with baited breath!

protesters who wave banners and derogatory signs saying that they are speaking for me and the rest of the country who are stuck at work. SIR, – Is it really so surprising that the United States of America spends such a large amount of its GDP on the military?

If you are going to play the “global policeman or superpower” you clearly need to cover the world not just Europe.

If you look at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2018 fact sheet, the expenditure of all countries is listed. There are some surprising statistics. The clear leader is the USA with $610 billion (£460bn), and China is second at $228bn. Surprisingly Saudi Arabia is third at $69bn, followed by Russia and India. The United Kingdom comes seventh behind France.

In terms of percentage of GDP the clear leader is Saudi Arabia at 10% whilst Russia is second spending 4.3% with the USA at 3.1% and China at 1.9%.

Perhaps the most significant factor is the overall global trend which shows a pronounced decline for the world from 6% in 1960 to less than 2.5% in 2017. Looking at the USA there has been a significant decline from 8.4% to 3.1% over the same time period. The United Kingdom, Germany, and France have also followed a similar reduction.

Does Trump ever think before he speaks? Was it too difficult for someone to tell him that Finland was not a member of Nato? He is a total embarrassment to the office of president and the United States of America.

Such ignorance is potentially dangerous.