OPINION

Skeletons to hide

David James Wong in his May 11 letter, "Snouts in the trough", slams the Thai authorities for failing to captures "Boss" and blames corruption.

He implies that the Thai authorities have now become the laughing stock of the international community.

I doubt this, as most governments also have skeletons to hide.

In 2008 two members of an equally wealthy UK family were caught with a quantity of class-A drugs in their possession including crack cocaine. UK prosecutors decided not to proceed as it was "not in the public interest".

Similarly, in 2006 the fraud office enquiry into whether billions of dollars were paid in commissions by a major UK defence company to middlemen in a massive Saudi arms deal was also shelved.

It seems Mr Wong holds Thai authorities to a higher standard than their Western democratic equals can achieve.

Perhaps, a more appropriate theme song would be The Man of La Mancha and the Impossible Dream.

Re: "China could find its new empire too hard to handle", (BP, May 20).

China pulled out all the stops last week in rolling out its trillion dollar "Belt and Road" initiative. Leaders from 29 countries fell over themselves, eager to outdo each other in complimenting the wide-ranging infrastructure programme.

Countries expecting windfall investment from the Belt and Road programme would be well-advised to adhere to the classic warnings to "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" and that "there is no such thing as a free lunch". Despite China's assertions that it only wants mutual benefits for countries participating in the initiative, we can all be sure that China will reap the bulk of the benefits over time and future favours in exchange for current "generosity" will be ultimately be demanded.

If I remember correctly, the edict from a big brother in the Prayut Chan-o-cha government was: "You can think, but you cannot say" (rough translation). Guess we now need to add "and you cannot read posts on the internet either".

Wonder what that means in terms of educating the next generation, seeing as Thai education already is sub-standard.

The sight of King Salman and Donald Trump, as published in your May 23 newspaper, presiding over the opening of the self-proclaimed World Centre for Countering Extremist Thought in the homeland of Wahhabism, the extreme Islamic ideology, which was a precursor of both al-Qaeda and then IS, drips with irony.

Re: "British PM boosted by local elections ahead of poll", (BP, May 7).

If the Tories win the general election in the UK they will abandon the triple lock on pensions. Once that is done then the prospect of pensions for British expats in Thailand ever becoming unfrozen gets even more remote. At least Labour have committed to preserving the triple lock which gives a point of entry, however slim, to continue applying pressure to unfreeze British pensions in Thailand and elsewhere.

There are credible reports of pensioner suicides in this country as the pound continues to depreciate in value. Things are unlikely to improve as Brexit looms. Labour International (labourinternational.net) is doing what it can in countries across the world to address this injustice.

Trump and his trembling White House remind me of another charismatic strong man with a strange hairstyle, Adolf. As an effective diversion from his mounting troubles, Trump should invade Scotland as soon as possible. This makes sense as his mother was Scottish, and in one fell swoop he would protect his investments in Turnberry and Aberdeen.

In addition Ivanka could set up a new Trump tartan line, franchise this out to Chinese entrepreneurs and create thousands of much needed jobs for the Scottish economy. Scotland gets to break away from the Auld Enemy England, and if the Trump tartan line is successful could apply to be the 51st State of the USA under the new name Trumpland.

Sometimes you've just got to have a wee laugh ...