IAIN Macwhirter ("Will ‘NatRail’ be superior to ScotRail? Passengers will certainly take some convincing", April 3) takes a cheap and ill-informed swipe at our Scottish Government when commenting on the prospective consequences of ScotRail coming under Government control. His poor grasp of basic economics is clear when he compares the marginal cost of a car journey with the cost of a rail ticket.

The fixed costs of operating his car, including depreciation, tyres, insurance, vehicle licence, servicing and MOT are presumably met by a benefactor, leaving him with only the cost of fuel. He also appears to be unaware that policy and development of Scotland's rail network will continue to be the responsibility of Transport Scotland whose rail division is led by Bill Reeve, an experienced railwayman and an eminent member of the engineering profession, who is highly esteemed throughout the UK and beyond. The recent electrification between Glasgow Central and Paisley Canal was widely acclaimed, having been delivered at a cost substantially less than similar projects elsewhere in the UK.

Scotland is well rid of the Abellio management and Mr Macwhirter's unsupported scepticism is unlikely to be borne out by events.

Willie Maclean, Milngavie.

MAKE ALL TRAINS AND BUSES FREE

IT’S a pity that the tenor of Ian Macwhirter’s piece on the newly-nationalised rail services is predominantly negative before Holyrood does anything and I suspect this is just the start of an agenda that will eventually blame all the ails of our sub-standard rail network on those dammed Nats.

Why is it referred to as “NatRail” and not “OurRail”? Even if the present Holyrood executive is as gormless and functionally inadequate as the previous providers of the service were, it will cost the general public less than it has been doing as no shareholders will be feasting on the dripping roast that privatisation of the rail services had handed them on a plate.

As the reality is that one way or another the general public ultimately pay for everything, why not make all rail and bus transport free and paid for by the taxpayer? Make it a real public transport, do away with tickets and money altogether.

I know from personal experience since I got my old-fogies free bus pass it has dramatically reduced my reliance on the car for short journeys; if I knew I could jump off and on any train I wanted to without a ticket I’d think about getting rid of the car altogether.

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

LET THE UNION RUN TRANSPORT

I NOTE Iain Macwhirter's article on the faith that the travelling public might, or might not, have in Scotland's rail service. With his comments on the power of the RMT union when it comes to pay and the provision of an efficient and effective service and the need for cabins on ferries, I wondered if the answer would be to negotiate with the RMT on the basis that it be given total responsibility for the management and running of all rail and ferry services in Scotland.

With such responsibility comes accountability and they just might acknowledge that they have a duty of care for the proper provision of transport and for paying passengers and goods. It would at least be beneficial to see them put their money where their mouth is. If over a period of time the RMT succeeded in managing our transport infrastructure, praise would be justified. If it failed it would then be found wanting and deserve the same fate as Abellio.

Ian Gray, Croftamie.

TIME TO END THIS FARES DISCREPANCY

BEFORE the pandemic I used to travel monthly by train from Arbroath to Gourock to have lunch with old Clan Line shipmates. A day return using my senior railcard and split ticketing (only available with same-day travel) cost around £28, but if I decided to stay overnight with my son in the Greenock area the fare was £40. Occasionally I would drive and not once did my car stop on the Erskine Bridge and say “it’s Good Friday/Christmas Eve or are you stopping over, because you will have to put another two gallons in the tank”. The distance was 115 miles 365 days of the year and that’s what you should pay for.

We have not long had our hourly Aberdeen service restored, and the first time I used it I had to return via Edinburgh because a train broke down between Stirling and Dunblane, cancelling all trains north for several hours.

No doubt ScotRail would say “ah well,you’re actually getting a bargain with £28” but would you look at it like that? RET on Calmac suggests not.

David Fyfe, Arbroath.

BBC PURSUING ITS OWN RACE AGENDA

IT was called Disclosure: The Truth About Scotland And Racism (Monday, 8pm, BBC1). A far more appropriate title would have been The BBC Take On Racism In Scotland.

Ever since the ghastly death of George Floyd (in Minnesota, in May 2020, 3,727 miles away), the BBC has been following an agenda that England is a similar dystopian racist nightmare which few of us would recognise. It flies in the face of recent worldwide academic research stating England is a tolerant multi-cultural society.

Clearly, the BBC, as with a criticised Panorama documentary in January 2021, has decided Scotland will be treated in the same way. I would have expected a highly experienced broadcaster (Clive Myrie, Andrew Marr or Sophie Raworth) to have presented such a sensitive topic but we got young, Scottish, black, former model Jean Johansson. From the start of the documentary she admitted that she had been unaware of racism in Scotland yet, by the end, concluded that we were becoming much more racist, quite a jump in 30 minutes. As the wife of former Rangers player Jonatan Johansson, it was surprising she struggled to name one of the many current black players in Scotland before settling on Chris Iwelumo,who hung up his boots in 2014. One problem, which undermined her argument throughout, was her reliance on historic evidence. Cue the ghastly 1988 coverage of bananas thrown at Mark Walters or solicitor Aamer Anwar's abhorrent story of police abuse in 1991. Similar stories in that period were all too commonplace.

Surely the documentary should have focussed on the Scotland of today? In 2009 there were 4,564 racial incidents reported to the police. The current figure is 1,782, a reduction of 39 per cent. Many pupils are taught Modern Studies where race relations, racism, prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes are covered. I would like to think education is having an effect in stamping out the cancer of racism. Certainly the Census of 2011 showed that many of the top jobs in Scotland have many Scots of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani origin. Professor Nasar Meer was convinced that Scots of ethnic origin do suffer discrimination but do not report it. He offered no evidence.

My greatest concern was the willingness of Mr Anwar to refer to the Sheku Bayoh case as more evidence of Police Scotland discrimination; but this is still under investigation by the public inquiry of Lord Bracadale. Suffice to say PIRC investigated the case and the Lord Advocate brought no charges.

Yet again the BBC has tarnished its historic reputation for impartiality.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife.

WHY NOT CHOOSE LIVING HERE?

NOVELIST and separatist mouthpiece Irvine Welsh has criticised the Scottish Tories for adapting words from Trainspotting as a device to highlight past and current SNP failings. Fair enough, I guess. But what does Welsh, from the comfort of his Miami sun-lounger, really have to contribute to any discussion about the reality of life in Scotland today? He hasn't lived in Scotland for many years (he's a long-term expat in the US). If he had, perhaps he could at least contribute to the debate in an informed manner, instead of hurling abuse at us from 4,000 miles away.

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

WEST CAN BE DESTRUCTIVE TOO

I WATCHED a movie on Netflix the other night called Official Secrets. It tells the story of whistle-blower Katherine Gunn's extraordinary effort to highlight the lies of George W Bush and Tony Blair in the lead-up to the Iraq war. She was an amazing lady and risked her freedom to expose the truth. It is particularly relevant at the moment during the Putin-led invasion of Ukraine.

Both wars were/are illegal, unprovoked acts of aggression, with enormous civilian death tolls involving the complete destruction of innocent countries. Putin's Russia has been quite rightly severely sanctioned and hopefully Putin himself politically damaged and on his way out of power. After watching this movie, Messrs Bush and Blair were no better when it came to Iraq; shame on them both. The so-called democrats of the West can be just as destructive when it suits them.

Paul Morrison, Glasgow.

WE SHOULD STOP FOREIGN AID

THE latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says what the 195 countries in the world have to do to tackle climate change, but few are listening. Net Zero by 2050 will cost every UK householder £100,000 or £3,000 every year. This for a meaningless 1.15 per cent of global emissions.

Energy bills are £3,000 and growing. Britain is sending foreign aid of £1.3 billion a year to 37 countries. China gets £12.4 million and India £57.8m. Foreign aid must be stopped immediately. Charity begins at home.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.