Letters: P&O workers are proof this Government doesn't care about its citizens

There’s a common theme here. The UK Government doesn’t care about the welfare of its citizens. If it did, it wouldn’t have left the single market, sold off our public assets, bungled the pandemic, starved the NHS and shredded the social safety net. It has done these things because it makes it and its corporate donors richer. That’s what it cares about.

And Labour’s silence speaks volumes.

Scotland has known this since 1955, the last time it voted for a Westminster Government. We need to escape this rotten edifice before it comes crashing down.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh.

* I HAVE sailed with P&O under different ownership and remember the kindness and competence of their staff, so I was heart sorry to read about the misery of P&O’s employees. Companies who prefer dividends to faithful service appear in the ascendancy these days and weak governments do nothing.

It is noteworthy that the French-crewed P&O ships are not involved in this job hijacks. P&O’s directors did not have the courage to face up to the French Government and French law.

Were Scotland independent and part of the European Union they would have been in a similar situation and the Cairnryan-Larne ferry would not have been involved and we could keep our exports going without check. It is this feeling of being the poor, powerless relation in a merger with a larger country that forced Norway towards independence and becoming the rich country it is. Covid or not, it is high time Scotland followed Norway’s example.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh.

IRELAND'S EXAMPLE FOR SCOTLAND

ALTHOUGH not much of it was reported this week in our media, Joe Biden made the following remarks in a speech on Thursday (March 17): Ireland is a global force in culture and in the arts, a leader on the world stage, a member of the United Nations Security Council and a country with a future that’s going to shape the world. He also praised Ireland’s willingness to take in Ukrainian war refugees, adding: “What Ireland is doing now, taking in Ukrainian refugees, speaks so loudly about your principles.”

This is an extraordinary endorsement of Ireland’s place in the world’s community of progressive nations and it probably comes as a surprise to most Brits that little Ireland, our "poor relation" next door whom we largely ignore as being too wee to bother much about, is actually a member of the UN Security Council and a big hitter on the world stage, with deep and enduring connections in Washington, Brussels and elsewhere around the globe.

The contrast with isolated and impotent Scotland is stark. Ireland has a smaller land mass, population and natural resource wealth base than Scotland and yet the UK media is full on a daily basis of assertions that an independent Scotland would fail – including from our own Scottish unionists (Tory, Labour, LibDem). One only has to glance at youthful, vigorous, prosperous, confident, connected Ireland, now getting into its stride 100 years after its own independence, to see that these north British unionist assertions are absurd.

Given that Scotland’s natural wealth exceeds that of Ireland’s, it is difficult not to reach the conclusion that either Scots are (a) fools, or (b) unaware that they are being continually lied to and exploited by the UK and its Government, media and career politicians.

Diarmid Jamieson, Dunbar.

LET US TAX OUR ENERGY EXPORTS

SOME clarification is required on “responsibilities” relating to Scottish oil and gas. No one in Scotland, certainly not the Scottish Government, has any power over the licensing and exploitation of Scottish hydrocarbons – that is reserved to London and has been for 50 years. Ditto taxation of these resources. Scotland has never received any specific benefit from its North Sea oil and gas fields, and the average energy costs to Scots consumers is higher than other parts of the UK.

For fairness, I propose Holyrood institutes a “transition tax” over the oil, gas and electricity transiting Scotland to supply other regions. We would expect a similar tax on electricity coming to Scotland, which would be equitable, but given the low levels of imports, that would impose minimal costs on us. This would allow Scotland funding to develop alternative forms of energy, and encourage those dependent on Scottish oil and gas to also seek energy solutions that don’t damage the planet.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

PATEL DESERVES LITTLE SYMPATHY

A RHETORICAL question can be defined as “a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer”. Anyone who fails to recognise this in Tim Rideout’s tweet – “So how do we send this person back to Uganda?” – fails to recognise either or both of two things ("SNP policy adviser suspended after ‘Uganda’ slur against Home Secretary", The Herald, March 17).

First, they do not recognise a rhetorical question. If we can end the virtue-signalling obsession with the first part of the tweet and instead consider the whole, Mr Rideout is clearly horrified by Mrs Patel’s policies and actions with regard to immigrants, particularly now there are a large number of Ukrainians, refugees driven from their country by war, needing our shelter and support, rather than an obsession with the consequences for the Common Travel Area of Ireland having the kind of humane and supportive policy toward Ukrainians that, to our utter shame, our own country does not have, thanks to Ms Patel’s Home Office.

Secondly, that while Ms Patel’s family for many years lived in Uganda, her mother and father emigrated to the UK in the 1960s. Her grandparents came when Idi Amin expelled the entire minority Asian community.

Conservative MSP Donald Cameron describes Mr Rideout’s tweet as “completely beyond the pale”. How does he feel about our Prime Minister comparing women wearing burkas to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”?

Labour MP Ian Murray describes them as “truly horrendous and outright racist remarks”. What did Mr Murray have to say about Ms Patel’s comment that “the number of illegal small boat crossings is appalling and unacceptably high. The figures are shameful. France and other EU states are safe countries. Genuine refugees should claim asylum there, not risk their lives and break the law by coming to the UK”? Mrs Patel seeks to minimise the number of migrants, turning any ‘inconvenience’ over to any other country as long as it’s not the UK! The contrast with her own life experience could hardly be stronger, which is the point Rideout is trying to make. The contrast with her own life experience could hardly be stronger, which is the point Mr Rideout is trying to make.

If Mr Rideout made an error it was to make his point in a way that could be twisted and used by such as Messrs Murray and Cameron to prompt sympathy for a Home Secretary, a quality she singularly lacks where migrants are concerned.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.

THE SUFFERING OF WOMEN IN WAR

TO quote John McEnroe, Iain Macwhirter cannot be serious ("Seems ‘toxic’ masculinity is OK when it comes to fighting wars", The Herald, March 18) . He writes: "There are no laws to ensure that women get equal mortality" (in war). It's my understanding that since the Second World War, mortality rates among women and children far outweigh those of (male) combatants. The Lancet states that in the Syrian war 70.6 per cent of the deaths were civilian, 29.4% combatants.

When the Ukranian war started, I commented to my husband that it was an irony we need men to save us from men – those men who think that war solves anything. Look at the Russian and Chinese governing bodies – rows and rows of men, making decisions that lead to untold pain, trauma and suffering.

God help us, especially all the poor women and children who are just "collateral damage".Yes, please let's have more equality in terms of negotiation, consultation, determination to resolve our differences without resorting to talking about" courage, self-sacrifice, protectiveness, solidarity, honour", as we blow cities and their inhabitants to smithereens.

Lizanne MacKenzie, Dumfries.

The fire-damaged former Royal Alexandra Infirmary in Paisley. Can there be new life there yet?

THE HOSPITAL THE PEOPLE BUILT

WHAT a pity that some of the splendid buildings of the original Royal Alexandra Infirmary, named after Edward VII's Queen, have been damaged by fire ("Residents evacuated as blaze rips through former hospital", The Herald, March 18). Let us hope that the adjoining residents were not too badly affected and that the buildings do not follow the fate of many other outstanding Paisley buildings on the sites of Ferguslie and Anchor Mills which were demolished, including the category A-Listed Number 1 Spinning Mill at Ferguslie.

It is interesting to recall that the hospital, opened in 1900, was built as a result of funds being raised through public subscription, with the people of the town organising many events to raise money, with one Saturday a year being named as Hospital Saturday. For many people Paisley is usually connected with the manufacture of thread and the contributions made by two families mainly associated with thread toward the building of the hospital were recognised with the western building being named the Coats Pavilion and the eastern one the Clark Pavilion. These facilities served the people of the town well for many years.

I would hope that, even in the face of lying unused for a number of years and the damage caused by the fire, something positive can still emerge for the retention of these iconic buildings.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

TODAY'S PRICES ARE REALLY PUMPED

WHEN I was in my teens, after school and at weekends I would work in a garage pumping petrol. I distinctly remember selling it for £0/4/11d or 25 new pence a gallon, the equivalent of 5.5 new pence a litre. The average price of petrol in the UK today is £1.64/litre which equates approximately to £7.35 a gallon.

A packet of 20 fags in the 1960s used to cost £0/4/7d, again less than 25 of your new pence and the average price of a house was £3,500. Cigarettes are now £14 a packet and the average UK house price is £275,000.

I wonder if the average take-home pay is now some 100 times what it was in the 60s?

David J Crawford, Glasgow.