Letters: Cutting crew levels on our ferries is not the answer

The often-repeated comparison made between “similar sized Norwegian Ferries” and their crew of 12-13, versus CalMac’s vessels and higher crew numbers, ignores the fact that four of our 14 major vessels (and 25 of our 35 total vessels) are already crewed to a lower level than the quoted Norwegian example, and fails to consider the fundamentals of how a crewing model is built for a particular vessel.

If we were to reduce crew numbers on our remaining vessels to the levels quoted, given the specifics of the assets we have to work with, the result would be both passenger capacity and timetable capability far below demand. This is not aligned with our commitment to the communities we serve.

If we are going to compare apples with apples, a neat example is that of MV Alfred, currently on charter within our network. Her crewing level, which is not in the control of CalMac, does not allow the fulfilment of the required timetable on the Ardrossan-Brodick service, the only network route she fully interfaces with. In practical terms this would mean a reduction in service for Arran from 34 to 21 return sailings per week.

We regularly engage with communities and ferry user groups to discuss ways to enhance the service we offer and we’re open to all ideas, but cutting crewing to the levels quoted is not a viable option if vessel capacity and timetable capability are to be maintained.

Craig Ramsay, fleet management director, CalMac Ferries Limited

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UK Government can’t change reality

LORD Sumption put it quite well on the Today programme when he said (and I paraphrase somewhat here): “you can't pass a law and say you've changed reality.”

The UK Government is trying to do just that: the treaty with Rwanda is the legal equivalent of saying "yes, we promise we'll be good; I know we weren't every other time, but this time: we will be good as gold ... pinkie promise!" The subsequent bill before Parliament amounts to attempting to change what is real, and what isn't.

You can't just say, "oh no, don't worry, we said it's safe, so it is!"

Reality doesn't work like that; the Rishi Sunak isn't captain of the Starship Enterprise: they can't just "make it so."

I fear, however, that this current administration has no intention of obeying the laws of reality. We're too far along this endless cavalcade of insanity to have any doubt of that. Let us only dwell on the heartening knowledge that we are close to the end of this "five-year-mission to boldly go etc." Pray we never return.

Hugh Mulvihill, Edinburgh

Focus on our priorities First Minister

THE First Minister obviously does not subscribe to the old saying “take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves”. He is calling an emergency meeting re lack of money in the budget. This is the same FM who has given money away in foreign aid to three African countries even though this is not part of the devolved powers but a UK function.

He recently flew to COP with an entourage and promised money to help developing countries. Again he was not representing the nation of the UK whose remit this falls under. He sent money to provide aid for Gaza .. more foreign aid which comes under the UK remit.

I am sure there are many other examples of when money meant to help the people of Scotland has been spent elsewhere and many would say they were worthwhile projects. But the FM cannot complain the UK government does not give him enough to help the people of Scotland if he chooses to spend it on projects which are not in his remit and do not help improve the lives of the people it was meant to be spent on: that is you and me, aka people in Scotland

Elizabeth Hands, Armadale

Complicated history of the Jewish people

NORMAN A Ogston (Letters, December 4) asserts that Britain "gave back Palestine as the ancestral home of the Jews". That is indeed the history as written by British historians, but Mr Ogston should consider the very different accounts written by others.

The Israeli historian Shlomo Sand (Tel Aviv University) risked more than his reputation when in 2008 he published The Invention of the Jewish People. A re-examination of Jewish history, it exposed "conventional lies about the past" which served to justify the traditional narrative (such as that repeated by Mr Ogston). Professor Sand challenged the orthodox views of "the authorised agents of memory" who had steadfastly denied any deviation from the received version of Jewish history.

Another Israeli historian, Adiyah Horon, insists there is no truth in the claim that an "exile" occurred after the destruction of the Temple when the Emperors Titus and Hadrian supposedly expelled the Jews from Palestine.

Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian-born naturalised British citizen of Jewish parentage, demonstrated another misconception in his remarkable book, The Thirteenth Tribe. Ashkenazi Jews, who today comprise some 90% of the world's population of Jews, sprang not from the "holy land", but from barbarians living in the ancient empire of Khazaria between the Caspian and Black Seas.

In his masterpiece of world history, The Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan, director of the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University, explained the spread of Judaism in the ninth century when the Khazars chose to convert to that religion en masse. Many of these Khazarian Jewish converts migrated to what today is Poland and Russia, and the evidence demonstrates that they had no link to "the holy land" or Palestine.

Dr Eran Elhaik, an Israeli geneticist (and himself Ashkenazi) conducted genome studies at John Hopkins University tracing the geographical origins of a significant number of Ashkenazi Jews across the world. He clearly demonstrated that their ancestral origins were not Palestine or around the Mediterranean, but from that region now in north-east Turkey that once comprised the Khazarian empire. In other words, the science appears to confirm the history of the above-named academics.

The great irony is that significant numbers of the Palestinians driven from their homes into the Gaza strip, and being slaughtered there today by Israel, are quite possibly descended from the original Jews of that land who, through the expediency of survival, converted to Islam following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the first half of the 7th century.

No matter the historical truth, the utterly disgraceful killing and maiming of innocent children in Gaza must stop now.

Dr J Macgregor, Harviestoun, Clackmannanshire

Read more: Surely now we will waken up to the failings of CfE

Look what’s happened to our police

IT is reported that Police Scotland is to offer voluntary redundancies to officers in a bid to save funds. The Force has warned that without an additional £128m, officer numbers could drop by almost 1,500. It did not take long from the creation of Police Scotland in 2013 for the service to experience decline and far from being established to save money and provide an enhanced level of service, the opposite has been the case.

I imagine those requesting voluntary redundancy will be more experienced officers so just imagine the result: an even less efficient police force. I imagine former officers of the original eight forces must look in horror at what has happened to policing and the public has borne the brunt of it.

We also learn of the “devastating indictment of SNP’s record on education” following disgraceful scores in world PISA tests. The SNP’s stewardship of Scottish education has been branded an “abject failure”, remember Nicola Sturgeon asked for her reign to be judged by her “record on education”.

On top of every other failure of Scottish government since 2013, surely it is time for the most fervent of nationalist supporter to admit that it is game-over for this utterly failed ideology.

Douglas Cowe, Newmachar