Rob Reiner’s lesson on power for Trump | Brief letters

Instead of trying to sully the reputation of Rob Reiner with a typically petty and self-aggrandising outburst of bile (Trump’s post on Rob Reiner sparks outrage from lawmakers and celebrities, 15 December), Donald Trump would be much better off trying to take several leaves out of one of the director’s best, if more underrated films, The American President (1995). It’s an object lesson about the power of compassion and consensus in American politics.
Quentin Falk
Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Your report (Ancient lake reappears in Death Valley after record-breaking rains, 12 December) says Badwater Basin is “the lowest point in America”. Surely the lowest point of America is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Richard Fielding
Hong Kong

Can I thank Copland Smith for his eloquent Christmas elegy for the demise of the Labour party in the form of a letter about birds stripping his holly bare of berries (9 December)? “Not a single flash of scarlet remains” indeed.
Nicola Grove
Hertford

I was struck by the sentence “It is believed to have been cut down deliberately” (Christmas tree in Durham village chopped down hours after lights switched on, 12 December). In what circumstances might a decorated tree have been felled accidentally?
Pete Lavender
Woodthorpe, Nottinghamshire

Re the stages of life (Letters, 15 December), can anyone confirm whether buying a Honda Jazz and reclining armchairs within a short period of time is the outward manifestation of a life stage?
Lynn Fotheringham
Over Kellet, Lancashire