Trump's win should be a reality check for our leaders

But we do need a more sensible approach on the environment, the threat of Russia demands more spending on defence, every day the issue of immigration grows and much of the woke/identity agenda is destabilising and weakening our society My hope is that Mr Trump's reality check will encourage UK leaders and our economic and defence allies to inject some hard-headed common sense into their policies. His win didn't cause the German government coalition to collapse on Wednesday, but the likely March election will be an early opportunity for a key player to face up to the coming "weather".

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

• PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump's resounding victory is a wake-up call for the western world. To ignore the genuine fears of tens of millions of Americans with regard to uncontrolled and illegal immigration and dismiss those complaining simplistically as being ''far right'' has come back to bite with a vengeance.

Much the same applies to the genuine fears of many with regard to recent controversy in the western world over gender. A liberal elite have ruled the roost in the US and Europe, and they have tended to ignore other views. These factors, at least in part, helped decide the US presidential election. They have also been prominent in recent European elections.

Those occupying the centre ground of politics must come to terms with this. You cannot dismiss millions with heart-felt worries as all being far-right troublemakers. Their worries must be addressed. Otherwise I fear real fascism may rear its ugly head again in the western world.

Democracy is difficult to fathom at times. Donald Trump's views represent the majority of Americans. It is a worthwhile struggle to keep it alive.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

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Our media are out of touch

IT is a pity that your writers are so biased against Donald Trump. One would have thought that it would be natural to prefer a half-Scot who has spent a lot of time in Scotland and who has invested money in Scotland rather than the other candidate.

Nevertheless your writers carry on making derogatory statements about Mr Trump and his policies. Rebecca McQuillan ("The world is a dangerous place. Britain needs Europe", The Herald, November 7) writes at length about Nato and the dangers from Russia. I did tours at two Nato HQs and visited the others. It was a long time ago but from my reading of the situation I do not think it has improved much. I read the RAND Corporation papers which give a good indication of how the US thinks on the subject and it is not thinking it is perfect.

As far as Russia is concerned, where is all the proof of the danger emanating from them? Ukraine had a specific problem in that it had quite a large Russian-speaking group in their country and they did not treat them very well. Can you imagine if that happened in Mexico? Russia has not shown any expansionist tendencies for a long time.

We are once again shown how out of touch our media are with lower-working-class people. They are the ones who voted Trump in.

I should declare a bias. I am a member of the spa at Trump Turnberry.

Jim McAdam, Maidens.

Good record in the Middle East

DONALD Trump has many faults, but the knee-jerk anti-Trump brigade ignore his success in brokering the Abraham Accords. They could well have led to a genuine Middle East settlement by its proven success in normalising Israeli relations with certain other countries, and were on the point of achieving a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia when Hamas deliberately sabotaged the negotiations by its brutal actions on October 7, 2023, knowing exactly what would follow.

Conversely, Barack Obama is still sanctified despite his flawed nuclear agreement with Iran, unwisely supported by the EU and UK and continued by Joe Biden, which encouraged that malign theocracy to extend its anti-Israel and anti-Arab influence throughout the Middle East - and is now a close and active ally of Vladimir Putin and North Korea in their war against Ukraine’s fledgling democracy.

John Birkett, St Andrews.

Immoral victory

DEMOCRAT Grover Cleveland, Donald Trump’s predecessor as a defeated USA President who returned later to the White House, did not enjoy a trouble-free run in the morality stakes at the Presidency at the election of 1884 (he returned as President following the election in 1892), when he was accused that, when younger, he had fathered an illegitimate child.

He admitted the accusation and Republicans challenged him with chanting "Ma, Ma, where’s my pa"?. Democrats, not put out, responded with "He’s going to the White House, ha, ha, ha".

No doubt there will be many downcast Democrats in the USA who feel that there is much that could be chanted today in the direction of President-Elect Trump, apart from congratulations.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

Failure of the pollsters

TOO close to call. This was the loud and repeated cry of the pundits and pollsters in the run-up to the US presidential election. Their error on this occasion is causing more than a little consternation in the pollster-industry Stateside.

A case in point: J Ann Selzer is widely regarded as the “gold standard” of her industry. From 2008 to 2020 she accurately predicted the outcome of several elections in Iowa: a state that consistently voted blue before swinging red in 2016. She is now openly questioning the data and method of her poll which showed Kamala Harris leading by a margin of 47% to 44% in Iowa. By no means is this a first. Remember the pollsters and media pundits also got it badly wrong on this side of the Atlantic:

• Having predicted a hung parliament, the Conservatives won a clear majority in 2015, surprising many.

• The polls showed Remain winning the EU Referendum in 2016; the result, however, gave victory to Leave, 52% to 48%.

• The size of Boris Johnson’s win in the General Election of 2019 was also seriously underestimated.

Accurate prediction in elections is a tricky business. Capturing the full picture is complicated by uncertainties around voter turnout, sampling weaknesses, voters providing false responses, and, not least, changes in voter sentiment, often at the last-minute while in the polling booth.

Concern is also growing that 24/7 media coverage of election run-ups tends to reflect the mood of the moment among the so-called experts and commentators. The danger here is clear: good connection with the reality of people’s day-to-day may be lost; punditry becomes no more than an echo chamber, full of “sound and fury” signifying little; and, in this post-truth era, the very health of democracy (and the legitimacy on which it depends) risks further difficult-to-repair damage.

Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns.

Barack Obama (Image: Getty) Scotland a target? Really?

ISOBEL Lindsay (Letters, November 7) is scaremongering by claiming that "Trump’s finger [will be] on the Faslane nuclear trigger". The UK nuclear weapons system is operationally independent. Why she thinks Scotland has "a big target on our backs" when the countries most at risk of attack by an aggressive Russia are those without nuclear weapons - after Ukraine (which used to have them), the Baltic States and Moldova - is a mystery. Which nuclear power has been attacked?

Stan Grodynski (Letters, November 7), alongside Ms Lindsay, is fantasising again. He somehow manages to link his obsession with Scottish separatism to Donald Trump’s imminent assumption of power (which I do not welcome). Mr Grodynski imagines that "our European allies" would be delighted to "work more closely with an independent Scotland free of nuclear weapons". He misses the point that the UK and France provide a nuclear umbrella under which "our European allies" shelter, and that Nato, at least, would not look favourably on a secessionist Scotland that expelled nuclear weapons (if it could).

Those who favour Scottish secession need to provide a clear business plan for their imagined new country if they are going to win over a majority. They cannot do that, so they wander off into dreamland about abandoning nuclear weapons when some of the most dangerous regimes on the planet have them and our first duty is to defend ourselves. It really isn’t very bright.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.