Sunday Herald letters

This system actively prevents people with disabilities from getting the support they need if they can't work or the support they need to enter and sustain employment if they can. The financial and emotional costs are stark to those involved. Trying to determine whether someone with a disability is fit for work is absurd, as many people have fluctuating medical conditions and different jobs require different attributes. It is far fairer to devise a system which recognises the additional costs that people with disabilities face, while providing appropriate support in order to pursue what is right in their situation, be it paid work, voluntary work, training or education.

Stephen McMurray

Edinburgh

Vicky Allan's article was extremely insightful and timely. However, she has misunderstood one aspect: it is the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which makes decisions regarding someone's capacity for work based on an interview and examination by an Atos employee.

The Tribunal Service becomes involved only when there is an appeal against the decision, and she is correct in saying that most decisions are overturned on appeal (varies from approximately 50 to 75%).

The decisions of the DWP and the Appeals Tribunal have to be based on criteria within the regulations, which have recently been changed, and if anything, make it even harder for people to be awarded Employment Support Allowance.

Michael W Adamson

GP Nursing Homes Medical Practice

Alan Templeton's letter got at a real kernel of truth: Scotland and England are drifting apart (England says good riddance, Letters, January 29). It has little to do with nationalism. The social values are simply diverging. However vague one may think he is, Salmond has resonated with the popular preference for an egalitarian society that provides opportunity for the young and care for the aged and unfortunate, and is not hung up on the old battles of capital vs labour. Miliband makes these kind of noises, but in Scotland his party has turned out to be a bad loser. And the Liberals hae mair faces nor a toun clock.

Mr Templeton's fellow Conservatives are widely seen in Scotland as suave robbers who stand not for enterprise but for sectional and class interest. The "good" Tories of old, Heath, Douglas Home and Macmillan, for whom many Scots voted, are a lost tribe. Elsewhere your able columnists Messrs Macwhirter and Bell have repeatedly expressed puzzlement at the poor case put for maintaining the UK. There is one, but with Cameron's City chums and a roaring rabble of Little Englanders at his back, you won't hear it. The UK is the only significant counterbalance to Germany and France in the EU. Neither England, much less Scotland, will have that kind of purchase on their own. We should be strengthening the EU along sensible lines, not threatening to leave it. Because, like it or hate it, in this wicked world our economic and collective security now lies with the EU.

But if the Westminster politicos can't or won't get that, I will gratify Mr Templeton by voting for separation without blinking. I don't want us to be trapped in his crabbit and mean-minded Greater England.

Gavin Sprott

Edinburgh

Alan Templeton gives an interesting alternative to why Scotland should be independent. Unlike many of the unionist politicians north of the Border, Mr Templeton is at least able to make a positive case for his views. Unfortunately, these appear to be based on ignorance of the Scotland I know. Although his imperialistic rhetoric brings as much a smile to my face as he appears to have gained when he "giggled" at Ian Bell's comments about being a "republican socialist", what I find most worrying is that, should the Scottish people not vote for independence, the retribution to be wrought on Scotland by any Tory UK government with supporters such as Mr Templeton is scarcely worthy of thought. If Paxman in a "United Kingdom" can currently compare the Scottish First Minister to Mugabe, of what is Mr Templeton's Tory Party capable should Scotland choose to remain in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

I fear a "no" to independence may herald a 21st-century version of the Clearances, as an assertive UK Government takes its revenge on its ungrateful, smaller neighbour.

Colin R Mowat

Laurencekirk

Alan Templeton's letter clearly tells us why we should vote yes in a referendum on Scottish independence if, as appears likely, David Cameron and his Westminster cronies ban a second question of Devo Max. We are hearing a lot about "The Union". What union? In 1707, Scotland's politicians agreed to what amounted to a takeover by England and nothing has changed – the unionists claim we don't have the legal right to hold a referendum without the say-so of Westminster. No-one today would expect one partner to stay in an abusive and unhappy marriage. So it is with the union. Mr Templeton's letter should be mandatory reading for every voter in Scotland before 2014.

Jim Robertson

Montrose

If the West African fish procession plant in which a Scottish trawler owner has a financial stake employs 300 workers, it must be handling huge quantities of fish (Scots fishermen attacked over high-seas plundering, News, January 29). In your article, Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said he wants rules to "ensure vessels that fish abroad follow the same rules and respect the same sustainability principles as those operating within EU waters". Ian Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen's Association, expressed concern that if Scots skippers are refused permission to fish in African waters their "place will be taken by countries with no sustainability scruples like China and Russia".

Have Dr Dixon and Mr Gatt not read Scottish headlines recently? Dozens of Scottish skippers are deliberately and repeatedly breaking conservation quotas for fish stocks around our own shores. Vast tonnages of illegal fish were landed, netting skippers more than £100 million in illicit profits.

Scottish fishermen have failed to respect sustainability principles by destroying fish stocks in our waters. Now that they have literally killed the profits in the North Sea fishery, what's to stop them doing the same in foreign waters?

John F Robins,

Animal Concern

John Kay is an economist and commentator of considerable distinction (Salmond in 'fantasy land' over tax plans, says former adviser, News, January 29). However, sometimes he gets things wrong. A case in point is his assertion that the government of an independent Scotland in the EU would not be permitted to set a rate of corporation tax of 12.5%. Under EU law, the rate at which a member state levies corporation tax is a decision solely for the government of that country. And that will remain so unless and until all 27 EU members agree to cede (full or partial) sovereignty over corporation tax policy to Brussels. It is difficult to envisage a UK government agreeing to this.

Professor Kay is correct to imply that EU members with particularly low rates of corporation tax face political pressure to reverse their policy. However, as is clear from the fact Ireland still retains its 12.5% rate of corporation tax, members cannot be compelled to do so.

Drew Scott

Professor of European Union Studies and co-director, Europa Institute

Joanna Blythmann's criticism of The Mulroy are unrecognisable from the exquisite food I and many others have enjoyed at the restaurant since it opened.

Russell Sharp

Edinburgh