WILLIE Towers (Letters, January 25) reminds us that Rishi Sunak’s newly-appointed ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus is an Old Etonian investment banker.

Sir Laurie is also a graduate of Oxford University and inherited a baronetcy. Clearly the ideal person to investigate the clouded tax affairs of super-rich Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi.

Meanwhile, questions are being asked about Richard Sharp, who thoughtfully put a Canadian businessman in touch with Boris Johnson so he could offer a loan guarantee of £800,000. I’m sure Mr Sharp appreciated the difficulties of his friend Mr Johnson, forced to get by on a mere £165,000 a year as PM. A few weeks after that introduction Mr Sharp, who has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservative Party, was appointed chairman of the BBC.

Mr Sharp appears to be grander than Sir Laurie: he’s the son of a baron. He attended the private Merchant Taylors' School in London, and (of course) graduated from Oxford University and then had a stellar career at Goldman Sachs, including as Rishi Sunak’s boss. Goldman Sachs was famously described in Rolling Stone magazine as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”.

Mr Sharp’s appointment is now to be investigated by William Shawcross, the Commissioner for Public Appointments since September 2021. Mr Shawcross isn’t an aristocrat, his father was a mere life peer; but not to worry, Mr Shawcross attended Eton and Oxford. His daughter married a rich businessman and baron, and worked on Boris Johnson’s London mayoral election campaign; she’s now Rishi Sunak’s deputy chief of staff.

All of which illustrates that the UK lies somewhere between feudalism and plutocracy; it certainly isn’t a meritocracy. If you want to rise to the top, it’s best to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth and then get regular legs up (and loans) from well-connected family and friends.

I’m sure many of those who hold senior positions are capable, and so they should be after all that money spent on their education. But are they really the best, the most talented? I suspect not and that, of course, is why the UK is steadily falling behind other countries that don’t carry such heavy burdens of tradition, hierarchy and privilege.
Doug Maughan, Dunblane

Brexit is holding back equality

IN 2020 Sir Keir Starmer produced a paper headed “My Vision” as part of his leadership campaign. In that paper he maintained that “a just and more equal society is possible” in which we can “create a healthy society with dignity, justice and compassion at its heart”.

Although I am most disappointed with his U-turn on Brexit I hope that he reconsiders his stance as, daily, its consequences become more obvious. In particular he may, in order to keep his early commitment to the interests of those at the margins of society, have to recognise that the poor in a Brexit-damaged society will be particularly vulnerable.

I have, in past letters, made it clear that I cannot contemplate voting Conservative (due to sleaze) or SNP (wrong priorities) and I assume that a vote for the Liberal Democrats would serve no meaningful purpose in this part of the country (3.2% of the vote in 2019), sympathetic though I am to many of the Liberal Democrats’ civilising policies. In any case I am a social democrat as opposed to a liberal democrat.
John Milne, Uddingston

More influence within the EU

MARK Openshaw (Letters, January 25) asks “Why leave one union for another, why leave the union that is the UK to join the union that is the EU"? To paraphrase the current Toyota hybrid cars advert, “Not all unions are born equal”.

First, the EU is an economic union, while the UK is a fully comprehensive political union. Secondly, there is a clear mechanism to leave the EU (as the UK demonstrated), so sovereignty allocated to the EU is only "on loan", rather than lost.

But why, Mr Openshaw asks, would an independent Scotland “join another [union] in which we would have even less representation and influence in lawmaking?”. This points to one of the core defects of the UK, that the four constituent nations are so unequal in size that the largest one can always get its own way, if it is clear enough about what it wants. It was England that drove Brexit. How often does England not get the government that it voted for?

In the EU on the other hand, while there are several (very) large countries (France, Germany and so on), Scotland would be about the 17th or 18th largest state with Slovakia and Finland, with 10 countries (35%) having smaller populations. To manage this, the key skill is to seek common cause with others, entering into coalitions to influence decision-making. In other words, to play a full political part in the union, something which the UK was not always sufficiently willing to do while a member state.

Further, the EU employs "qualified majority voting" which requires two conditions to be met at the same time. First, that 55% of member states vote in favour – that is, 15 out of 27 currently. Secondly, that the proposal is supported by member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population. A system like this does at least mitigate the “tyranny of the majority”, something about which in practice, the UK seems unconcerned.
Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton

Incompetence from SNP once more

ONCE again the SNP has failed to see huge flaws in its legislation ("Thousands at risk over eviction ban loopholes", The Herald, January 25). In fact it is making a regular habit of this, with a recent high-profile example being the Supreme Court challenge and now the very real suggestion that its gender reforms will fall foul of other rules.

The message given out is a very simple one: incompetence. It pervades everywhere the Government is acting in Scotland, such as when it comes to ferry contracts and similar Government business ventures. Yet all of this pales into insignificance when it comes to the biggest quest for the SNP/Green alliance, which is independence. The mind boggles at the thought of just how much these two parties will have got this wrong and just how severe the consequences would be if they were ever to win this.
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Turn Holyrood into a museum

UNDER the current regime at Holyrood the Scottish political scene has become extremely narrow, and lacking in what might be defined as a true form of democracy. Debate instigated by the opposition parties is generally treated with derision. And let us not forget that without support from the Green Party, the SNP does not actually have the necessary majority to govern.

It really has to be said that the whole current charade at the Scottish Parliament has become just a mockery of democracy. Scotland would be much better off these days without Holyrood. We Scots deserve better than the haphazard government enacted by the Scottish nationalists.

Surely the time is fast approaching when governance of all parts of the UK should be returned to Westminster.

Perhaps the buildings at the foot of the Royal Mile could be converted into a rather over-priced museum dedicated to Scotland's political history and culture?
Robert IG Scott, Ceres, Fife

Arrogance of Stephen Flynn

I WITNESSED the SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, being questioned on Ian Dale's LBC show this week. Questions came from various parts of the UK and the arrogant sneering of this man towards those who were not of a similar political persuasion was utterly astonishing and shameful. In particular, when asked by a gentleman about how Scotland would defend itself if independent his response was deplorable, sarcastic and contemptible.

The 50 per cent or so in Scotland who support independence really need to take a long hard look at what Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have done to our country. If this is the best we have as a politician, what a dreadful future Scotland has.
Douglas Cowe, Newmachar

Think beyond the next election

I NOTE that the UK Government is taking an admirably long-term view on the issue of state pensions ("Retirement age could rise to 68", The Herald, January 25), an issue politicians can clearly manage to get their heads around.

Would that they, and their Scottish counterparts, could take such equally long-term views in order to make realistic plans for the NHS, energy policy and security, transport and infrastructure, and defence amongst others. It is the politicians’ inability to think beyond the next election, to distinguish between aspiration and practicality, and to stop using such long-term issues as political footballs, that most holds us all back.
Angus MacEachran, Aberdeen

Read more letters: Scots will see through Jack's deceit and back the gender bill

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