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

Where those parties once prided themselves on being broad churches, accommodating a wide spectrum of opinion, they are now retreating into narrow sects, intolerant of difference and demanding undeviating conformity..

You would think this would leave the middle ground free for members of moderate parties, though the fear is that, in the unsettled state of politics today, there will in fact be no middle ground thanks to the fervent fanatics who refuse to tolerate any deviation from what they believe and demand.

The middle ground is going to be no man's land,with no room for moderate or tolerant MPs.

What a loss people like Ken Clarke, who has come to the end of a long career of sound achievement, and Tom Watson, who is departing the stage for as yet undisclosed reasons, will be to the House of Commons.

Others of that same ilk from the more moderate and pragmatic wings of their parties have also decided that the time is right to look elsewhere for their career satisfaction.

Now we are left with the neo-liberal group headed by Johnson and the hard left epitomised by Corbyn's acolytes, both playing to the gallery with their characteristic policy narratives.

This is a recipe for political revolution, no matter the result of this electoral campaign, the only beneficiaries likely to be the SNP which will put forward its demand for a second independence referendum, the major parties having been wiped out of Westminster representatives north of the Border.

Denis Bruce

Bishopbriggs

There is no doubt that in the next independence referendum, the usual venom and bile will come from Tory Westminster.

They have cost the public billions on a Brexit built on lies and the self-interest of Westminster. You only need to look at their faces and it tells all.

Scotland, Ireland and Wales deserve better than these bullies. The public should sue the Tories for sheer incompetence and waste of our hard-earned money and pension funds.

They fall out and hide behind the Queen's skirts like cry-babies in a tantrum when they don't get their way. They ridicule anyone who votes for good reasons, then attack them and blame them for the mess the Tories themselves created.

We deserve better and we need to free ourselves, and govern ourselves. Let's be Scotland the brace and ditch them and their biased union – the Union of Fools.

Glen Peters

Paisley

Nicola Sturgeon has decided to make the coming General Election primarily about independence. Yet the likely outcome on that front is already pretty clear. Despite what she says, I expect the First Minister is well aware there is effectively no prospect of a second independence referendum in 2020 ("Sturgeon tells indy rally: our future is on the line on December 12", The Herald, November 3).

If Boris Johnson secures the majority he is seeking, there is no chance of an independence referendum rerun being agreed with the UK government before the 2021 Holyrood election, and even after that, any prospect there might be would be dependent on the SNP securing a clear Scottish parliament majority.

If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour gets into power with support from the SNP, the cost will no doubt be to allow an Indyref2 – but not, I suspect, on Nicola Sturgeon’s terms or timing. Instead, Labour will likely insist that it will not be an early priority and again the earliest prospect would be after the 2021 Holyrood election. As for the terms, the attempt by the SNP to stop the Electoral Commission fulfilling its normal role in any second referendum, has put all the UK parties on notice not to gift the SNP a free hand on how a referendum is run. Instead, the fundamentals would need to be hard-wired into any future equivalent of the Edinburgh Agreement.

The only other realistic potential outcome from the general election would be some kind of coalition involving the Liberal Democrats, now led by Jo Swinson, who is equally adamant that there should be no Indyref2 in the foreseeable future.

So, why does Nicola Sturgeon keep up her pretence that an independence referendum will be held next year, when the reality is that it would be in two to three years' time at the earliest, if at all?

Keith Howell

West Linton

The facts can't lie, guys

The incredible impoliteness and negativity of the letters (Herald on Sunday, October 27) from the “nominative determinatively" named Messrs. Cross, Parkin(g) and Mo(o)re is astounding.

Mr Cross repeats his mantra re China, Russia and India – perhaps he could add Australia and USA to his “it’s the big boys fault” attitude. Has he never heard of a stitch in time, better prevention than cure, every little helps etc?

As for Mr. Parkin ... where has he been for the past 40+ years when people like Ms Forbes have tried in vain to get action on the world’s greatest threats of climate change and nuclear weapons. This is not a new bandwagon but one that has found a way to be seen and heard by more people.

Mr Moore has obviously missed the news about fires in California, floods in Bangladesh and Britain, famine in parts of Africa, El Nino changing dangerously and species disappearing. Whatever is responsible for climate change we all need to work towards a better future world.

If you think I am fanatical or ill-informed would the three believe the world renowned scientists who set the Doomsday Clock? This is at two minutes to midnight because of the combined threat of nuclear annihilation and climate change.

Action is urgent. I wish it was unnecessary and, yes, my heating is off and I wear an extra pullover as I write this; ironing, vacuuming, lawn mowing are minimal; public transport, cycling and walking are used. Of course I should do more.

Sandra Phelps

Glasgow

Other politicians should follow this lead

As a coalition of independent and third sector organisations that support vulnerable children and young people we would like to applaud Daniel Johnson MSP for his article on need for those in the public eye to be more open about conditions such as autism, dyslexia and ADHD and the challenges they face (Herald on Sunday, November 3).

Many of course are not speaking out as they will have conditions that are not diagnosed, but for many who have there is a stigma that is sadly still prevalent around such conditions that means they are often reluctant to do so.

However, unless prominent people speak out about this that stigma will remain and will make others with such conditions feel even more excluded and hinder them speaking openly about them. This will not only impact on the individual concerned but will limit general awareness.

If between one in 10 and one in 20 people have autism, ADHD and dyslexia, for example, there are clearly a large number of MPs and MSPs with such conditions, and yet we know of just a handful, including Daniel, who are open about them.

As we look towards a General Election our hope is that MPs elected with such conditions become courageous advocates, telling the world about their everyday lives and the opportunities they have as well as the challenges they face.

The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition:

Tom McGhee, Chairman, Spark of Genius

Duncan Dunlop, Chief Executive, Who Cares? Scotland

Kenny Graham, Principal, Falkland House School

Niall Kelly, Managing Director, Young Foundations

Lynn Bell, CEO. LOVE learning

Why do we refuse to learn from the past?

There are two bugbears making life more difficult for our teaching fraternity today. One is the lack of discipline and the other consequent upon that is the loss of teaching time.

The former is a result of the weak sanctions available to counter indiscipline, the latter the result of spending time to quieten a class to deliver the prepared lesson.

Here we might be inclined to hark back to the way classrooms were set up in the past – though this probably identifies me as a dinosaur whose mind still roams in the realms of Jurassic Park pedagogy.

Many of your older (and dare I say wiser?) readers will remember the serried ranks of fixed desks in pairs where the teacher stood on a raised platform allowing the teacher to see to the back of the classroom to ensure all youngsters were paying attention.

I am not advocating a return to fixed desks. However, having pupils sitting in groups of four around a table leads to inattention on their part, there being unnecessary distractions in such a set-up.

When the teacher has to deliver a prepared lesson, it seems sensible to have all the pupils facing the front. In this era of lightweight chairs and desks, it would be so simple to have them lined up as in the past for the delivery of the lesson and then quietly rearranged into discussion or cooperative groups of four for the follow-up of working together.

Furthermore, every class should have a second teacher riding shotgun, as it were, to ensure that the pupils remain focused on what they have been taught in the delivery part of the lesson before they set about practising in groups what they have just had explained.

There is no need to have thrown out the baby with the bathwater and to believe that some aspects of what was done in the past are of no use today.

There is one other feature of today's classrooms which allow for unnecessary distraction – namely, the low level of windows which allow pupils to be distracted by whatever or whoever passes outside the classrooms.

Our forefathers saw the benefit of having windows placed high enough to allow enough light into the classrooms and so less opportunity for distraction from the outside.

I just wonder why the wisdom of the past is ignored today when it still serves a more than useful purpose.

Denis Bruce

Bishopbriggs