Scotland Matters Letters

At a meeting of education leaders in 2015, the First Minister promised to close the attainment gap, saying: `Let me be clear — I want to be judged on this.’ Nicola Sturgeon is now being accused of abandoning her promise I disagree with this. She is not abandoning it now, she abandoned it the minute she left the room where she had made the pledge. The SNP is not focused on education, health, transport, the economy and the things that matter to the public. All we hear from it are empty promises — mealy-mouthed words which are meaningless. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow just as there is no hope of the SNP ever concentrating on what really matters to those of us who live here. Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray.

The SNP is persistent. With its independence referendum bid getting a red light by the Supreme Court, it is now attempting yet another way around this judgment — by using its day in Westminster to amend the Scotland Act. Scots are experiencing severe problems, particularly in the wholly devolved Scottish NHS. Any caring government would be devoting all its energy to this task. It is obvious the referendum isn’t happening or is beyond its ability, yet the SNP still persists in expending resources on a quest for independence that can only bring more chaos to the country. Where is the logic in this? When Nicola Sturgeon says she is ‘Stronger for Scotland’ does this mean she is simply inflicting more serious damage upon a despairing public? Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.

Adam Tomkins’s article (“The time is corn-i ing for SNP’S young guns to take control”, The Herald, December 14) was a brilliant analysis of how the SNP is trapped in its moaning mindset. I fully agree with his analysis of what the SNP should have done after the referendum – actually, start the transformation of Scotland, show what can be done and explain what could be done with independence, then go back to the electorate for permission. But it didn’t and in truth the SNP lost its way shortly after the 2011 election, which it won because it appeared to have done better than the previous “B” team Labour/ Libdem administration – But then, having won the right to have a referendum, its leaders realised they wouldn’t win it unless they injected some grievance and fairy tales. Until then, I found “independence in Europe” and the concept of pragmatic interdependence with the UK, such as a shared service approach to agencies such as the DVLA and CAA as espoused by Kenny Macaskill and Mike Russell in their books, quite attractive. But then newsletters started popping through my letterbox claiming families would be £5,000 better off after a Yes vote, lies were told that the NHS was about to be privatised, Alex Salmond trivialised the currency issue and people started appearing dressed up as William Wallace. They not only lost my vote but incurred my loathing of their approach and idea of “Scottishness”. All this begs the question of who the “we” are that Professor Tomkins refers to that are “increasingly fractious” about the SNP’S screw-ups. “We” inhabit a bubble of several hundred thousand people who read the papers and other informed publications and social media, but there’s obviously not enough of “us” to vote them out of power. In fact, judging by recent polls, some of us are jumping ship to the SNP. It is undeniable that the SNP has failed in the tasks it was presumably voted in to execute, but the message isn’t getting through to the 1.5 million of Scotland’s 4.3 million voters who don’t vote for a pro-union party or the other 1.2 million who don’t vote at all. Perhaps it’s because, in the last year, campaigns like Believe in Scotland delivered 2.7 million leaflets full of pro-independence, anti-uk and anti-tory propaganda, and the pro-uk side is not only split, its main parties are underwhelming the electorate. And Prof Tomkins could be right: a new wave of SNP politicians might just be able to discard the grievance baggage and provide an honest, realistic and optimistic vision and, the way things are going, they might even be able to avoid the obligatory spell in opposition to achieve it. A lot will depend on how lucky Rishi Sunak is with the economic weather, and if people are willing to forgive the Tories and Labour for the Johnson-Corbyn years. Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

The latest report on Scottish prisons show that we have more than 25% of prisoners on remand awaiting trial, which places Scottish prisons as the worst in Europe for holding prisoners and adding to the overcrowding problems. This is yet another unenviable record for the SNP administration which, added to their many failures, reflects on their total inability to govern Scotland. Dennis Forbes Grattan, Bucksburn.

Sir, – As someone with a West Indian heritage whose DNA analysis indicates both Scottish and African ancestry, two items in The P&J caught my eye. One was heartening, the other would be laughable were it not for the fact that some may take it seriously. The first (Scots slavery marked with plaque, December 7) concerned Scotland’s most senior judge officially acknowledging the true extent of Scotland’s role in the slave trade and saying that its hands were far from clean. What Lord Carloway called “collective amnesia” with regard to slavery, is largely due to those in favour of separation from the UK actively promoting the idea that colonialism and slavery were something the English did, and that Scots were only peripherally and reluctantly involved. This was part of their effort to present Scotland as somehow morally superior to England. However, evidence to the contrary is all around us in the form of the street names and grand buildings of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the country estates, grouse moors, and industrial heritage. It is right that the reality should be recognised. The second item was Frances McKie’s letter (Scotland a colony not a partner) which suggests that the British constitution is used to “entrap, permanently, one of its last imperial colonies’: Anyone who lived in a colony prior to independence will know that this is nonsense. The colonies did not have MPs representing them in parliament with exactly the same rights as every other British citizen. If anything, with a devolved parliament, we have more democratic representation than people in England. The whole letter is a blatant attempt to create grievance over injustices that do not exist in modern Scotland. We are not ‘ruled by” but are “part of’ the UK. Mark Openshaw, Cutts, Aberdeen.

Just how much time do SNP politicians devote to what really matters in the running of an administration? In recent times we, the public, have witnessed gross mismanagement in just about every area of what should surely be key Government responsibilities. Health, education, public transport — especially the Firth of Clyde and Hebridean ferry services— policing, welfare, even local government services have all suffered from an obvious lack of necessary attention from the Pow-ers That Be at Holyrood. Such appalling inefficiency has provided the media with a never-ending source of critical material for circulation. Far too much of the so-called Scottish Government’s time is dedicated to matters of a constitutional nature— for which they actually have no powers or responsibility. It took the Supreme Court judgment to remind them of that fact. If the status quo is the best that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues can come up with, then at the next Holyrood elections in 2026, the people of Scotland should cast aside this Independence-fixated political party in favour of one which will strive to produce vast improvements across all aspects of Scotland’s devolved areas of responsibility. It is action we need, not endless debate about how to bring about the demise of what has been a successful Union for over three centuries. Robert Scott, Ceres, Fife.

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