THIRD-SECTOR organisations are mostly in the front line of efforts to tackle poverty but there is growing recognition that we must also address its causes.
Therefore, David Torrance's advice to the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) to abandon grievance politics in favour of new ways to tackle inequality ("Past masters in the dubious dark art of grievance politics", The Herald, January 26) is laughable in the context of his vain attempts to shore up support for the Smith Commission version of devolution's future.
In response I would simply invite him to spend a Friday afternoon at a food bank, anywhere in Scotland, where he would encounter all kinds of grievances arising from the punitive welfare regime run by the UK Government.
Far from being an abstraction, welfare home rule is a simple and efficient proposition which ought to free some of our most hard-pressed citizens from harassment and humiliation by an increasingly hostile state, as well as enabling more effective integration with other public services, especially in health and care. Welfare devolution also enjoys the support of roughly two-thirds of the population, so its omission from the Smith process is a failure of politics rather than democracy.
Martin Sime,
Chief Executive, SCVO,
15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh.
FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon is right to say SNP MPs should vote on issues that, while formally only about England, affect Scotland's budget through the Barnett Formula. Logically though, that means they should vote not just on NHS funding in England, but on any "England only" vote which would result in a significant increase or decrease in public spending in England, and therefore having that effect on the other nations of the UK through Barnett.
This would also make a deal between the SNP and the Labour Party in the event of a hung parliament more viable.
Duncan McFarlane,
Beanshields,
Braidwood,
Carluke.
TO her credit Nicola Sturgeon has been upfront and made it clear that SNP support for a minority Labour Government would be conditional on scrapping Trident ("Leader clash over possible Trident coalition", The Herald, January 26).
Labour leader Ed Milliband now has to come clean and tell us if he will accept the support of a party which represents at best between eight and nine per cent of the electorate and support their demand to call the shots on the important and irrevocable issue of national security.
The electorate have the right to know.
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.
RUTH Marr (Letters, January 24) appears to inhabit a parallel universe different to most of the rest of us. She seems to believe that there are a minimum of 191,969 Scottish voters (half the No majority) who would have voted Yes, and therefore resulted in a majority Yes vote, but for the intervention of MPs who promised more powers for the Scottish Parliament.
I wonder who these voters are? I don't see them writing in droves to The Herald complaining that they were duped. In fact the only ones I see complaining about this are those who voted Yes.
This parallel universe is apparently inhabited by frustrated Yes voters who seem to think that they should have won the vote. If we have another one in a few years then everything will be sorted to their satisfaction. Unfortunately for them, most of us live in the real world where we can make up our own minds without being influenced at the last minute by politicians. Perhaps those who live in this never- never land can come to their senses and wake up to reality.
Colin Gunn,
327 Montford Avenue,
Rutherglen.
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