Gunning for Trump

June Gilles worries that improving public engagement in planning will slow up delivery of new housing. This is the usual protectionist approach from development interests who continue to blame planning and democracy for ‘distorting’ the market in order to avoid long overdue questions about whether we have a fitfor-purpose housebuilding industry.

Planning reform should not focus on streamlining regulation and sidelining democracy but on strengthening powers to ensure that high-quality new homes are built as part of truly sustainable places. Scotland needs a shift from planning for the special pleading of public limited companies to planning in the public interest. CLARE SYMONDS Planning Democracy, Victoria Street, Edinburgh

How odd that in the shadow of SNP MSP John Mason’s disgraceful behaviour on social media recently, which Nicola Sturgeon herself had to apologise for, that Allan Casey (aide to Glasgow Provan SNP MSP Ivan Mckee) has somehow passed the SNP’S vetting process for this year’s council election.

Not so long ago, Mr Casey very publicly praised the IRA and in particular two armed terrorists who died in a gun battle with British troops, who Mr Casey described as “SAS scum”.

Is this the type of deeply sectarian representation the more respectable majority of SNP supporters actually want, or are they happy that the party is pandering to the staunchly republican supporters among their number?

I would suggest that Ms Sturgeon really needs to get her house in order, lest she loses even more credibility.

There are already high profile SNP representatives waiting in the wings for the comedy piano to fall on her and awaiting the opportunity to exploit it to their advantage.

MARK WARD Dalmellington Road, Crookston, Glasgow Whatever misgivings one may have about Donald Trump, the undisguised glee in some quarters greeting efforts by unelected officials to bring about his downfall is profoundly misplaced.

Carolyn Taylor (Letters, 16 February) correctly points to “a purge of the state department’s senior leadership since Trump’s election” as being the root cause of mutinous stirrings in some sections of Washington’s security and intelligence establishment.

However, while ex-national security advisor General Michael Flynn may have been ‘economical with the truth’ in his discussions with Vice President Pence, the only illegality in the affair leading to his resignation was the anonymous leaking to the press of the contents of routine telephone conversations he had had with Russia’s US ambassador.

Under Obama and previous administrations, many members of what might be called the ‘trenchcoat and dark glasses brigade’ grew accustomed to the idea that international law was no obstacle to US involvement in projects to overthrow foreign governments such as those in Libya, Ukraine and Syria.

However, any deployment of this dubious expertise in the removal of Donald Trump certainly will not serve the interests of democracy, any more than it will serve the interests of stability in a country where, lest we forget, guns actually outnumber people. JAMES BRUCE

Church Street, Berwick-upon-tweed