Dr Gerald Edwards has been writing regularly predicting the imminent demise of the SNP Government. His last letter (August 7) describes a "lame duck administration", ignoring the fact that the Scottish electorate has returned an SNP government since the 2007 election. I wonder how he would describe the current position in Westminster with 10 Prime Ministers in seven years with only four of them actually elected through a General Election: a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party perhaps? The SNP quite clearly has "not been in decline for years" as characterised by Dr Edwards.
So how then to describe the current state of play in the UK? It is difficult to know where to start: the financial collapse of 1998; cash for honours; the Iraq War; Brexit; the Covid scandals; the ruinous HS2 project; the chronic inability of the MoD to manage capital projects; Grenfell; the Post Office scandal; the fact that there are now 17 English NHS Trusts under investigation for chronic failures that have resulted in the needless deaths of hundreds of babies; the shockingly high-energy costs pushing ever more families into poverty and having to rely on food banks; an overwhelmed justice system; a failing immigration policy; the selling-off of our public services and the destruction of our traditional industrial base. With even the defence of the UK compromised by underfunding, the UK’s stance in the world is now diminished.
A recent hard-hitting report from the think tank Common Weal concluded that the Thatcherite dream of privatisation with our industries and utilities being owned by UK shareholders has turned into the nightmare of "Rip-off Britain". There are now 23 separate rail companies in England; 18 energy supply companies; 12 water companies (now accused of polluting every lake and river in England) and 61 companies operating in the North Sea: 30% of these are private equity companies based in countries such as China, Russia, the US and Israel. We are the happy hunting ground for spivs and scoundrels. The recent fate of Grangemouth is a classic example of our exposure to speculation.
Then we have the failure of successive UK governments to take heed of the example of our Scandinavian neighbours and impose taxes on wealth and land. As a consequence, with the much higher tax take, people there enjoy a far higher standard of living than we do. They benefit from a suite of public services that are far better funded and deliver a much higher standard of service than their UK counterparts. Furthermore, there is nothing like the widening gap between the better-off and the worse-off that shames the UK. Instead, the UK has resorted to massive government borrowing on a truly eye-watering scale. Our National Debt is now in excess of £3 trillion and growing at over £4,000 per second. Compared with this abysmal record is it reasonable to talk of Holyrood as being "in decline"?
Eric Melvin, Edinburgh.
Read more letters
- The party’s over: Did Sturgeon and Murrell slay the SNP?
- We must invite astute professionals to build our new prisons
- And he’s off - Burnham enjoys break, but bounce fades
Where the blame really lies
Ian Lakin (Letters, August 4) is right to condemn the destruction of the North Sea industry. The loss of investment, jobs, and tax revenue is a tragedy for Aberdeen and for Scotland.
But he is wrong about where the blame lies.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund stands at over £1.3 trillion. Scotland's is zero. That is not an accident. It is a choice. Norway owns its oil. The UK sold Scotland's to international capitalists decades ago, squandering the wealth that could have secured our future.
Instead of blaming Holyrood for the consequences of Westminster's decisions, we should ask why Scotland's resources were never owned by Scotland's people. Norway treated its oil as a national inheritance. The UK treated it as a quick sale. No wonder Norway is laughing.
Mr Lakin urges Andy Burnham to show leadership. I agree. But real leadership would be acknowledging that Scotland's resources have been systematically mismanaged from London. Real leadership would be accepting that London cannot justify a permanent veto over the Scottish people’s right to reclaim what is rightfully their own.
Bruce Crichton, Hamilton.
Burnham plan not the answer
Granting further powers to Scotland's local or national politicians, as per Catriona Clark's suggestion (Letters, August 10) would only worsen a situation that's already out of hand.
Surely the last 19 years of SNP control has taught us something: that those in charge could not organise a drinking session in a brewery.
Devolving more power to them or, Lord forbid, another level of bureaucracy (mayors) would only exacerbate our already perilous situation.
We have to get real here... the current system in Scotland isn't working. We don't have politicians with the acumen or the will to take this country forward in these desperate times.
Devolution, way back then, was of good intent but it hasn't worked for the people of Scotland. Time has come for major change and I'm afraid Andy Burnham's philosophy of creating yet another layer of (expensive) devolved administration ain't gonna fix things.
NJ Hunter, Ardrossan.
Stop talking about freebies
When will independence-supporting correspondents stop talking about free stuff provided by this truly dreadful SNP Government?
Alex Orr in his letter (August 8) trying to justify how wonderful it is to live in a Scotland where we pay the highest rate of income tax in the UK, says that this is more than compensated for by free university tuition and prescription charges... he could also have added bus travel and baby boxes.
However, as Mr Orr will be only too aware, these freebies are not actually free at all but are subsidised from the taxes taken from those in work, the pool of which is shrinking by the day.
It really grates seeing these letters from the usual suspects spouting this "free" nonsense and I wish it would stop.
James Martin, Bearsden.
Noble or not?
So Anas Sarwar has lined himself up for a visit to an exclusive tailor for a fitting, in view of his appointment to the House of Lords, such fitting including robes of wool, fur and satin ribbons ("Sarwar defends his move to Lords", The Herald, August 10). He can derive some comfort, I suppose, from the fact that there are currently, it is reported, 216 Labour peers. They include such figures as Harriet Harman, Neil Kinnock, Alistair Darling and George Foulkes.
There were many who earlier eschewed vigorously the idea of going to the Lords until they were consumed by the desire to serve the country better in the Lords away from the pressing needs of the demanding electorate. The pay is not too shabby either.
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.
Israel: don't we care any more?
Israel’s campaign against its next-door neighbours has been getting little coverage in the media recently. I can understand why: it’s no longer novel, it’s the new normal. In Gaza, families try to survive in extreme squalor and filth, while wondering if today will be the day that Israel bombs their tent. In the West Bank, Palestinians live in constant fear of a raid by armed settlers, who rampage through villages, destroying buildings and beating men, women and children; meanwhile, Israeli soldiers look on, acting only to shoot teenagers who dare to throw a stone at the terrorists attacking them.
And in southern Lebanon, villagers who have returned to homes damaged or destroyed by Israeli demolition teams, and who only want to start rebuilding their lives, are on tenterhooks in case they’re suddenly told they have 30 minutes to flee before Israel’s warplanes start bombing them.
After the Hamas terrorist attack in October 2023, Sir Keir Starmer argued that Israel had the right to cut off power and water from the people of Gaza. Coming from a lawyer, that was mighty strange: he must have known such an act would be a war crime. While he was preparing the ground to depose Sir Keir, Andy Burnham apologised for Labour’s initial response to Israel’s ferocious, indiscriminate attacks on Gaza, admitting that the party had “got it wrong”. Now his coup has been successful, he’s gone quiet.
Across Gaza, more than 55,000 children have lost one or both parents. Tens of thousands more have suffered life-changing injuries. Many thousands are triply cursed, living in squalor, orphaned and missing a limb. Does the Labour Government care? Has Andy Burnham nothing to say about this? Apparently not, for all we’ve had is vague talk about cutting off trade with illegal Israeli settlements: that won’t have Benjamin Netanyahu quaking in his boots. History will not be kind to our timid, complicit leaders.
Doug Maughan, Dunblane.
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