Herald on Sunday letters: what readers are talking about this week

Next time round all the list MSPs – the majority of the Labour group in Holyrood – will have to face an electorate including those members in selection contests. Many of them will be going down the road to indulge their bile and spite elsewhere.

Labour nationally – across Britain – is now a socialist party and the right wing are not getting it back. In Scotland, that means campaigning not around issues of independence but against the fundamental nature of the SNP’s economic programme as represented in the “Sustainable” Growth Commission report which would require a 14% cut in public expenditure to achieve a balanced budget and keep market speculators sweet: Tartan Tories indeed.

Labour must campaign for a socialist and sustainable alternative – something which the Scottish Greens have singularly failed to do in their support for the SNP in the current Parliament. It’s all about class just like it ever was – for the many not the few.

David Byrne

Swinton, Berwickshire

Is our democracy ready for this?

From beautiful Bath, its biggest blogger on Scottish independence, Stuart Campbell, threatens to make the move from social media to frontline party politics. Just as some famous names in the commercial world have not been able to resist applying their brand to all manner of merchandise, the Wings Over Scotland founder sets his sights on bigger and greater ambitions.

Doubtless he could count on support from the faithful who flocked to crowdfund him and Alex Salmond in their respective forays into the system of justice.

But is our parliamentary democracy ready for a new style of disruptive politics led by one who, according to a court case judgment, has “chosen insult and condemnation as his style”?

Arguably, for this potential attempt at tactical campaigning to succeed, the self-styled “Reverend” Campbell would need to sit down with Nicola Sturgeon and game-plan an approach to the 2021 Holyrood elections.

Now that is a meeting that many in Scotland would like to eavesdrop on.

Keith Howell

West Linton

This is a Remain smokescreen

Three years ago me and a majority voted for a mandate to Westminster to leave the EU. Every deal proposed so far has been rejected by Westminster and therefore if Westminster cannot conclude a deal then to leave without a deal is the only option. What a majority did not mandate Westminster to do was remain in the EU.

All this talk of a second referendum, votes of no confidence, a government of “national unity” and a General Election is no more than a smokescreen by remainers to overturn a democratic vote and remain in the EU.

Paul Lewis

Edinburgh

A simple solution

Surely the answer to the Labour-SNP coalition talk is obvious. Labour can kill it all stone dead and emerge with credibility and without upsetting their remaining supporters by one simple action.

Tell the nationalists they will join with them in a bloc if they live up to their ‘‘once in a generation’’/“once in a lifetime’’ statements prior to the 2014 referendum and the subject is put to bed for, say, 30 years.

Who could argue against that?

Alexander McKay

Edinburgh

I hope you keep on striking, kids

So the great and good at Edinburgh City Council have given school pupils permission to take a whole day off to take part in climate strikes? Wow, I’m happy that our civic leaders are so in tune with the mood of this generation.

For many young people, the impending climate catastrophe is the biggest issue they are facing. Bigger than family, bigger than education ... and certainly bigger than the toothless bleatings of some middle-aged pseudo-politicians.

Do you really think that, faced with the opportunity to fight for the future of their planet (for it is no longer ours – even though our generation are the ones who caused the damage), they will care about what the council says?

I for one hope they will not. I for one hope they will continue to fight for what they believe and shine a light on the excesses of the modern world.

What’s the point of education if there’s no planet left for these young people to live on?

Bobby Hutchison

Edinburgh

The UK Government is bidding to host the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on Climate Change to be held for two weeks at the end of 2020 and, if successful, Glasgow would be the venue. The previous 24 years have achieved nothing except hot air and unnecessary emissions from the 30,000 delegates every year plus media.

The one held in Paris in 2015 created 300,000 tons of extra emissions. It took 21 years to get any commitment at all and COP21 failed to get the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels it wanted. Current pledges put us on the path to a catastrophic three degrees or more.

Meanwhile, China, India, Russia, Indonesia and others, including EU countries, all signatories to the Paris accord, are still building coal-fired plants and increasing their emissions.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow

What’s so bad about AFR?

The increasing use of facial recognition (AFR) technologies is causing hysteria among civil liberties and privacy campaigners.

Now the House of Commons science committee wants a moratorium on its use, legislation is in place which well and truly kicks it into the long grass.

But AFR doesn’t violate UK or EU privacy laws as no-one can have an expectation of privacy in their openly-displayed visage. In fact, all visitors to the UK should be on a continually updated database supplied to the Police National Computer to help identify illegal immigrants.

An illegal alien list set against the NI number database would find those claiming welfare benefits, using the NHS or working without a visa. And AFR has other potential benefits: identifying symptoms of disease or in an era of increasing dementia helping to find missing persons.

Rev Dr John Cameron

St Andrews