I HAVE a confession to make. I am somewhat cynical about how genuine the SNP is about tackling inequality in Scotland. Despite my cynicism, however, I felt the challenge posed by Labour’s progressive agenda would force the Nationalists to propose a budget for Scotland that enabled our country to embark on a process of real change. Despite my cynicism, I have to admit I have been disappointed.

Derek Mackay has introduced a series of tax measures that will mean that somebody earning the Living Wage will be just 38p per week better off than an equivalent person living in England under the Tories. Meanwhile a Scot earning £50,000 per year is £85 more better off than last year.

Tax cuts for some above-average earners and a complete failure to tax the richest at a fair rate will be funded by cutting essential services run by councils.

Again, councils will be forced to raise the most regressive tax (council tax) to help make ends meet because the Nationalist Government won’t do more than tinker with the most progressive tax (income tax). This is an utter disgrace.

Nonetheless, those concerned about the impact of SNP cuts in their community will be relieved to hear that Nicola Sturgeon’s “international relations” budget is safe. The Budget has increased by 25 per cent in just two years to £17.3 million and, among other things, funds jaunts overseas.

But that’s not the only place where savings can be made. The bungled farm payment scheme and what Audit Scotland calls an “unacceptable” waste of public money by Police Scotland are symptomatic of a government that is ineffective and inefficient. Rather than addressing these problems, the SNP elite is simply passing the buck to local authorities.

Government is, after all, about priorities and the SNP has shown time and time again how much of a priority those who rely on council services are.

Professor Scott Arthur,

Buckstone Gardens,

Edinburgh.

A THUMBS-UP for John Maclaren in his budget analysis piece yesterday in which he called upon the Scottish Government to open up a discussion on more radical revenue raising proposals (“We need to see the Government plans for further ahead”, The Herald, December 15).

He cites the example of the Scottish whisky industry “largely overseas owned and probably making supra-normal profits”; indeed.

Domestic turnover, according to some figures, is around the £5 billion mark with profits after tax and all overheads of around £3bn. Few if any other industries have anything approaching such profit-to-turnover ratio.

However, when the international context is looked at, the figures, as Mr McLaren speculates, could be gargantuan, at around the £25bn turnover mark .

Needless to say the political arm of Big Whisky, the Scotch Whisky Association, runs a lobby operation to ensure that certain whisky myths are perpetuated. I recall, at the dinner table of my working class family, “learning” that the production costs of a bottle of whisky was akin to a bottle of “ginger”, and that the mark-up went to the Treasury.

That I “learned” that “fact” while at primary school was testament to the industry’s public relations reach.

Today the reach is at least as effective, with special pleas implying that the industry has an air of economic fragility about it when it is in fact in the rudest of economic health.

Indeed, it is actually a gross under performer when say, whisky production-growth is match against GDP growth both at home and internationally. For the multinationals who own most of our industry ( this critique does not apply to smaller operations allowed a niche) the Scotch Whisky Association’s real institutional utility is to engage in new developing markets to establish other’s spirit factories such as vodka and so on in these developing markets.

The provenance of “ Scotch” is a national resource and should be treated as one. It is high time our political community stopped bending the knee to one of the planet’s most successful industries.

Bill Ramsay,

84 Albert Avenue,

Glasgow.

DR Richard Marsh (Letters, December 15) describes the SNP’s budget as “deeply cynical” and accuses the SNP of ensuring that the bulk of its independence supporters will pay less tax.

I wonder if Dr Marsh would describe previous Conservative budgets which lowered taxes to please their supporters as being “deeply cynical”.

The truth is that the SNP is committed to doing everything a devolved government with limited powers can do to protect the least well-off in society.

Let us not forget that they have been put in a vulnerable position and are struggling to survive the cynical policies imposed upon them by the “ destructive and self-serving” Conservative Government at Westminster.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

THE SNP Budget illustrates the problem faced by any political party. Budget planning is rather like walking a tight rope as there is little latitude since the main burden of taxation falls on the middle classes (“One million Scots are to pay more tax”, The Herald, December 15).

There are cogent reasons for a complete rethink on how taxation is approached and one method was suggested by the EU . This was the share transaction tax of about .0001 per cent on each share transaction.

This could be a way of ensuring that the richest members of the community pay a fairer proportion of their tax liability rather than avoiding it. Indeed, such a tax policy on a global basis could help with investment in the needs of people worldwide.

The EU should adopt this tit has and the UK should do the same.

The net result would be sufficient funds to ensure a better life for people and put an end to austerity, which has unfortunately blighted the lives of so many.

Ed Archer,

18 Hope Street,

Lanark.

DEREK Mackay, the Finance Secretary, has presented his budget proposals as being in essence “fair” and obviously he enjoyed the rapturous applause with which they were greeted by his SNP colleagues.

Perhaps I do not understand how such matters work but how can it be fair for him to pledge substantial pay increases to public sector workers whilst at the same time deliberately not providing local authorities, their employers, with sufficient funds to meet these pledges?

By this ploy those councils, not him, will have to face the music from the voters when they try somehow to raise the extra cash from cuts and/or council tax increases. In the context of the forecast of minimal growth for the Scottish economy, I guess the oft-quoted hard working families will find such cuts and tax increases much more damaging than anything arising from his fiddling with the tax bands and rates.

He can sit back and say, “nothing to do with me, guv, orsome such equivalent .

Alan Fitzpatrick,

10 Solomon’s View,

Dunlop.

I FIND it hard to describe my enjoyment and mirth at the howls of anguish from comparatively wealthy people becuase they have to pay what is, in most cases, quite a modest increase in taxation to cover important services. We are told they will rush to cross the Tweed to the lush tax haven of Tory England (Letters, December 16). If that is what they do, I say good riddance.

I noticed your front-page headline about one million Scots paying more tax. Why no similarly-sized headline about one million Scots paying less tax?

R Mill Irving,

Station House, Station Road, Gifford, East Lothian.