AM I alone in my irritation on being told that things are “especially difficult for children and young people”? Does Nicola Sturgeon think the rest of us are having a ball?

There appear to be some glaring inconsistencies in allowing 12-18 year-olds to meet outdoors from six different households, up to six people from two households in a pub or restaurant, and not even one from another household indoors, where social distancing should be even easier.

Children and young people are already meeting in school or college and adults are working, travelling and shopping, while residents in care homes and patients in hospital are denied any contact.

I think it is time for some sensible, joined-up thinking.

Isobel Hunter, Lenzie.

THE length of the ongoing pandemic has probably heightened critical awareness, and I find myself irked by inconsistencies in many areas.

Our sports people talk of bankruptcies but still pay eye-watering wages and find money for personalised face-masks.

Bankers shed crocodile tears over their concern for their clients but are lightning fast in reducing interest rates payable and are without mercy in bank charges to struggling firms.

Our television presenters bemoan the behaviour of so many but continue to hunt down government-critical stories - thrusting their hairy microphones, surely a potential source of infection, into unsuspecting faces while speculating at what “might be’, “could be” and “may be” and ignoring the fact that no-one knows what course the virus will take and at what rate.

James Watson, Dunbar.

THE normally very cautious Nicola Sturgeon has certainly gone for the nuclear option this time.

These draconian measures have to work as the negative fallout from them is already immense. The economy, already in deep trouble, will be really hard-pressed to recover from this and more sectors such as sports clubs will struggle to keep going without spectators.

The results of the current lockdown over central Scotland do not seem to be working at the moment and the fact that England has yet to introduce such a measure suggests it is not universally accepted as being the answer at this stage.

A large number of Scottish areas are little affected right now by the pandemic yet these measures are being imposed there, too. Lack of sufficient public support for the current measures is the key factor that has led us to this situation.

Will Nicola Sturgeon’s plea to us all, backed up by extreme measures, be any more effective? There will be no opportunity to either spin or hide the answer to that.

Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.

I LISTENED to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech on the latest rules on Covid and then, after many fruitless searches, found an up-to-date Scottish Government Covid page and also a transcript of her speech.

My daughter and I are now almost at the point of open warfare over the rulings on Covid, as we cannot agree on them. I maintain there are differing ways of deciphering the very important but surprisingly brief four-line paragraph on extended households, etcetera.

I maintain that the search for an updated and current Covid specific advice page is difficult to find.

George Dale, Beith.

S0 if I self-identify as English, can I go and visit my grandchildren?

John Dunlop, Ayr.

WHEN I studied history at the University of Glasgow in the late 1980s I never suspected I would find myself living in a nationalist, totalitarian state. Not in the United Kingdom, at least.

Having fully agreed with initial, full lockdown to allow measures to be taken and capacity to be built for ongoing and future Covid-19 risk mitigation, I now find I am prohibited from acting freely.

Prohibited, despite this capacity and risk mitigation being implemented, and the pro-NHS messages being quietly sidelined. Apparently I cannot be trusted with my own movements, or with whom and how I commune. I cannot be trusted to take the appropriate measures and actions per the Scottish Government guidelines. Or, dare I write it, to chose not to, but to be willing to face the consequences for my actions, be they social, moral, or health-based.

Herald readers could all provide good and bad examples of behaviour during this pandemic, but it’s key in a modern, free society that people take responsibility for their own actions. But perhaps this is where my argument falls down.

The government of First Minister Sturgeon does not want to allow that responsibility. There was the ill-conceived and ludicrous Named Person scheme, effectively the outsourcing of parental and other responsibilities. Not content with wanting to control some behaviours, the Hate Crime and Public Order bill now seeks to control our minds, to direct and define what we think, how we think, and how we express those thoughts.

In the context of these examples of proposed legislation it’s no surprise that Sturgeon continues her march to financial armageddon and non-Covid-based health catastrophe. Hers is not a government of practicality and delivery, it’s one of ideology and cant, it’s pure politics. And now it’s impinging on everyone’s rights - and responsibilities - in a so-called free society.

Kenneth Reid, Edinburgh.

I AM stunned by the announcement that people in the Highlands are being denied the right to visit other people in their own homes.

We have about 20 cases per 100,000; we are not even on the Covid hotspot list; we have had virtually no cases in my home county of Ross-shire – all this despite a surge in tourists visiting the area. It is an unjustifiable and lazy approach to adopt a one-size-fits-all policy.

Such tough restrictions may be necessary in densely populated urban areas which have high rates of infection, but in our rural stetting where infection rates are low, there is no case for the same rules.

We are being imprisoned by the stroke of a pen because I suspect it is easy to just apply one rule across the country rather than take a more intelligent and nuanced approach.

Why is it that I can spend an entire evening in a pub with my neighbours, yet I cannot have a drink with them in their own home?

And why is it that the SNP government feels that it is always necessary to go one step further than other parts of Great Britain? This is partly political, I have no doubt. Therefore I urge the government to take a more regionalised approach. Treating Gairloch like Glasgow is nonsensical.

Steve Jones, Achnasheen.

IN her latest broadcast to the people of Scotland the First Minister claims, with reference to the 10pm pub curfew, “...if we had the borrowing powers to extend furlough we might reach a different position.’’ This is blatant politicising of a supposed announcement on a serious health matter.

I am now convinced the First Minister is incapable of a statesperson-like response to anything. The inference is inevitably “if only we were free.’’

There are many ways she and her advisers could have made the furlough point without the “if only the UK was broken up’’ reference, which was a subtle as a sledgehammer blow. I have lost count of the number of times she has done it.

By all means make her point to her followers, but as First Minister – and, on these occasions, given unopposed access to the audiences she has – she is supposed to be representing all Scots, including the majority who stated clearly when asked that they could prefer the UK to remain intact.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

IT seems that Nicola Sturgeon is using the Scottish nation as a cruel social experiment to study the effects of keeping the entire population in lockdown for months.

Why are the Scottish people being persecuted in this way as some kind of punishment for the failure of the way the virus outbreak is being handled by the Scottish Government?

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen.

I AM sure that in coming months public co-operation in following the new measures to combat Covid-19 will again limit its spread in the UK, but when measures are again relaxed, in the absence of herd immunity, a third wave, and then a fourth, is inevitable.

I am also sure that a proven vaccine will become available. But when? Your guess is as good as mine.

I just hope I’m still around.

R Russell Smith, Kilbirnie.

AM I alone in wishing there could be more parliamentary scrutiny on both sides of the border of the new Covid restrictions?

I think there ought to be more information about the aid that will have to be extended to hotels, restaurants and city-centre coffee-shops. The long-term impact on thousands of businesses in the hospitality sector is going to be severe.

Urgent clarity from Johnson and Sturgeon is required.

D. Palmer, Edinburgh.