BETWEEN a wounded Prime Minister and an opposition leader who is unelectable we are caught between a rock and a very hard place.

How is Theresa May going to reconcile the formation of a power-sharing Northern Ireland Government with her absolute need to dance to the whim of the DUP at Westminster (“Major warns deal with DUP endangers peace process”, The Herald, June 14)? I am sure the electorate represented by Sinn Fein are strongly concerned about this step when no agreement has been reached about a new power sharing agreement for Northern Ireland.

Then we have a Labour leader who could not overturn a strongly distrusted Tory Government which had a slim overall majority. This is the Government that has inflicted years of austerity on the entire UK population and yet Labour is still 56 seats behind the Tories. What about the Liberal Democrats? Well, what about them?

The present situation only goes to show the poverty of the leadership on offer at Westminster. These are the people who are going to manage a successful Brexit to improve our lives. If it was written in fiction you would not believe it.

Dave Biggart,

Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.

WITH respect to the Tory Government’s appeal to the DUP in Northern Ireland, has anybody in Downing Street read the Good Friday agreement? It is explicitly clear that the two sovereign governments (that is, Dublin and London) must retain “rigorous impartiality” on policy.

How can anyone square that central statement with a Tory Government seeking political support from only one of the chief protagonists? Please note the two governments agreed, so any appeal to the DUP from London must surely seek the approval of Dublin.

Secondly, the agreement stated that there must be equal treatment of political rights which stands in contradiction to any DUP only agreement. Look at the text: "... the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities".

It would be an (other) incredible blunder by Theresa May to create another political and constitutional crisis with the real possibility of destroying the Good Friday Agreement – with unthinkable consequences.

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green, Carluke.

AS she puts the nation in hock to the DUP, at whatever price, Theresa May would do well to remember the words of Kipling: “If once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.”

Tom O’Neill,

4/1 Levengrove Court, Dumbarton.

NOBODY foresaw that Theresa May would fail to win an increased majority. No Conservative, no other politician, still less Jeremy Corbyn and no journalist.

It is therefore a typically British response to let her take all the blame. But how unfair it is. It was a sensible move at the time and looked sensible right up to the election itself. Every politician who ever lived made mistakes. Mrs May now, is probably far better equipped than ever before.

Nothing much has changed for the others. Mr Corbyn is still incapable of leading the country except into debt. His manifesto had no chance of being executed. It was all pie in the sky and enough young voters believed it because of their inexperience. Free university fees? What an impossible dream.

Mrs May scored less well at the human side than Mr Corbyn, exactly because he is inexperienced in government: never had a job, never had anything to do but stroll about Islington listening to people. Mrs May never had the time: all these boxes of papers to read over many years. Even the calculation to stay out of debates made sense: when she performs among others who are, by comparison, nonentities, they could only gain by being on the same panel. That decision is still correct.

What Mrs May must do is try to maintain a working majority, but if the pressure is on she must just go to the country again. A hard Brexit must be a solution to bullying by the mad dogs in the European Union who want to see her and our country savaged.

William Scott,

23 Argyle Place, Rothesay.

THE First Minister has commented on the recent election “disaster” for the Conservatives; fair enough; but Theresa May's decision to go to the country while her party seemed to be riding high in the polls was reasonable, and indeed, one which any political party might have made in the circumstances.

But polls can get it wrong, and at the end of the day, the electorate decides; just as they have decided, by delivering the SNP “disaster” of losing 21 seats, that an independence referendum is dead in the water.

If you want to arrest the continuing decline of your party, First Minister, reflect on that---and act accordingly.

Philip Adams,

7 Whirlie Road, Crosslee, Renfrewshire.

BARRY Lees (Letters, June 13) is misinformed. Voting is not compulsory in Australia. Attendance at polLing stations is.

It is not possible even in that country (of my birth) with its strong socially conforming pressures to force persons kicking and screaming to a poLling station and make them vote for an official candidate. Attendees can always, as here, spoil their voting papers (what is called there “informal” votes) in the privacy of the voting booth. In my day at least, non-attendees were given a very reasonable monetary option by way of fine by the law; which was moreover seldom enforced, even or especially upon request.

May I point out to Mr Lees that not voting may be seen to be a very definite expression of opinion about the candidates on offer and does not, as he seems to think, always indicate apathy?

Darrell Desbrow,

Overholm, Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire.