YP Letters: View from New York tinged with fear for future

I THINK it was in the hilarious hit comedy film Primary Colors that the fictional Presidential candidate Jack Stanton, played so well by John Travolta, said: “I will not go negative. Any jackass can burn down a barn.”

Well the jackasses have burnt down the barn this time. Donald Trump is not the main issue in the American Presidential campaign; he is the only issue. No serious political arguments are taking place in the US now and no solutions are being advanced to the great American people for their problems.

As someone who has grown up in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, I know history tells us the answers are not to be found in the simplistic solutions advanced by Donald Trump.

Writing to you today from The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City I see a great city all around me, a beautiful city just at the beginning of Spring. But I see a city with an awful lot of empty shops for rent. The contrast between rich and poor is ever wider. You see it when you cross over from Brooklyn into New York City itself.

When things go wrong good friends should say so. I genuinely fear for the future of democracy.

I fear for this wonderful country America, which should be so full of hope or promise, and onwards for the wider world.