So, one of Nicola Sturgeon's ex-pat luvvie supporters, Irvine Welsh, has turned on her, stating that her position on trans rights has set back the independence bandwagon.
Perhaps.
What's more likely is we've grown tired of the ex-FM's egotistical promotion of the cult of Nicola, and sick to the back teeth of her claim that most people who criticise her are misogynistic bigots.
Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire.
More letters...
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Risk assessment
You reported that the anti-trans group, For Women Scotland (FWS), are taking legal action to try to overturn the current Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy on housing trans prisoners (“For Women Scotland in new legal fight with ministers”, The Herald, August 18).
In fact, the SPS policy is pragmatic and aims to minimise risks for all prisoners.
For each trans prisoner (currently there are 16, out of more than 8000 prisoners), the policy is based on an individualised assessment of risks both for other prisoners, and for the trans prisoner.
The general rule is that a trans woman prisoner who has any history of violence, harassment or sexual assault against women or girls will be held in men's prison.
But consider, for example, a trans woman who has never engaged in violence, assault or harassment, and who is in prison for an offence like financial fraud.
She is very unlikely to pose a risk to other women prisoners, but may be at significant risk herself in men's prison accommodation.
Risk to all may be minimised by housing her in the women's prison estate, in line with her gender identity.
FWS apparently want to impose a blanket rule that all trans women prisoners should be held in men's prison.
That is based on FWS' ideology that trans people don't really exist, and should be treated for all purposes as their original birth certificate sex.
That ideology is apparently more important to FWS than minimising risks in prisons.
50 years ago, as a gay teenager, I was often told that being gay wasn't real, that I was imagining it, and that in any case, it was in itself bad.
The same things are now said by some about trans people. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh.
Regressive, not impressive
Perhaps someone can explain how perpetual council tax freezes (a large subsidy to the affluent), abject failure to advance land reform and multi-million pound hand-outs to very rich landowners were rooted in social justice.
They seem positively regressive, yet all were policies of Sturgeon's government.
David Bradshaw, Kilcreggan.
The young team
The logic proffered for lowering the voting age to 16 is that young people have the longest to live and therefore the most stake in the country’s future.
This is usually claimed by parties who believe their ‘woke’, caring, benefits and freebies will be popular with youngsters.
The SNP, for example, believed that impressionable young people, unfamiliar with economic reality, were likely to support separation from the UK and an unsubstantiated promise of Utopia.
Hence the voting age for the Scottish parliament being 16.
This will backfire when the ‘woke’ wake up and realise the largesse offered now will leave them with higher taxes.
The UK is struggling with increasing national debt, budget deficits and a population that believes it’s entitled to government support for every aspect of life’s tribulations.
This is unsustainable.
The next test of the young’s naivety will be the upcoming Scottish parliamentary election. Will they fall for the promises of those parties telling them what they want to hear?
Or will they examine what is offered in the various manifestos and campaigns in sufficient detail to recognise the absurdities?
The most easily discredited absurdity is separation from the UK.
Latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) figures show that Scotland has over £2,400 per head extra public spending, equating to 9.1% of the UK total, despite raising only 8.1 percent of UK revenue (including north sea oil), and a deficit more than double the UK as a whole.
This is before the cost, distraction and uncertainty of another referendum.
Will there be a party brave enough to present us with the unvarnished truths and a plausible, though painful, plan to address them?
Mark Openshaw, Aberdeen.
The price isn’t right
The recent figure released of inflation running at 3.8% (“UK inflation rises by more than expected due to rising air fares”, The Herald, August 21) is similar to the Liz Truss government’s handling of the economy, which is shocking to say the least.
These figures reflect Chancelor Rachel Reeves’ approach.
Cutting pensioners’ incomes (through the winter fuel allowance), continuing with the two child cap on benefits and raising employers’ national insurance contributions.
These all harm the economy, and households continue to feel the pain.
Meanwhile, food and drink inflation has risen from 4.5% to 4.9%.
These figures don’t bode well for the autumn budget, or the current review of welfare spending.
Unfortunately, the cost-of-living crisis continues under Labour who, from evidence of inflation figures, are mirroring the previous Conservatives government.
Catriona C Clark, Falkirk.
Scapegoats and scare tactics
The growing number of protests, sometimes involving violence, outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Scotland and England, displays a pattern which is by no means unknown in this, and other countries’, history (“Falkirk protest ‘dangerous wake-up call for all’, anti-racism campaigners warn”, The Herald, August 19).
At times of economic crisis, involving a seemingly incompetent and powerless state, there is often talk of social breakdown, along with the knee-jerk reaction is to find a scapegoat.
This frequently focuses on foreigners, marginalised groups or those regarded as outside mainstream society.
The most dramatic example in modern times was the Nazi persecution of Jews, and the attempt at their extermination.
We’re frequently urged, quite correctly, to remember the Holocaust, which shamed a so-called civilised and cultured country in the 1930s.
Lessons should be learned as we guard against a similar demonisation of groups in our own society.
The identification of asylum seekers with crime, including crime against children, is disgracefully pedalled by certain parts of the media.
The language used by some government ministers doesn’t help, either.
This is very far from being a rational or humane approach to the issue of people seeking asylum.
I’m also reminded of the experience of Irish immigrants arriving in Scotland in the 19th century.
In particular, a report of the Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland of 1923.
This was virulently anti-Irish, and not just in religious terms, but also in racial and ethnic terms.
The report claimed that the Irish "cannot be assimilated and absorbed into the Scottish race".
No one is claiming that the asylum system is perfect, and it certainly needs a drastic overhaul; an overhaul made necessary by the incompetence of successive Tory governments.
But flag waving and so-called patriotism will solve nothing.
Meanwhile, it’s impossible not to notice that many asylum seekers are arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I thought that the overthrow of the monstrous Saddam Hussein was meant to usher in a new Iraq.
And, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, the British have been sending armies there for nearly two hundred years.
Not a fact that makes me want to wave a Union flag.
Brian Harvey, Hamilton.
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