THERE is not much cheer in our news just now, what with the damaging fallout from Brexit, the continuing onslaught of Covid and now the horrors of the onslaught by the deranged Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces on the innocents of Ukraine. At a time of crisis you look for brave, inspired leadership, but what have we got here in the UK?
We have a Prime Minister who is beyond shame and who cares not a jot at the damage being done by his selfish conduct to the global perception of the UK. Our reputation is being further tarnished by the shocking way that the UK has responded to the terrible plight of refugees from Ukraine. Compared to the other European countries who have rushed to open their doors to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian barbarism, the response of the UK has been shameful. It is three weeks now since my wife and I offered to house a Ukrainian family and all that we had in reply is an email describing the tortuously bureaucratic process that has been put in place by the UK Government.
Last week’s financial statement by the Chancellor was confirmation, if confirmation was needed, that the Tory Government has absolutely no idea of the struggles facing so many of our fellow citizens. Any last lingering hopes that, just perhaps, we really were "all in this together" have been dashed by the action (or rather inaction) of Chancellor Rishi Sunak. His refusal to increase Universal Credit is disgraceful. His claim that he does not want to add to the UK’s soaring national debt is simply pathetic. There are clear remedies to hand but I suspect that these are obviously unacceptable to the Tories and their wealthy supporters.
It is shameful that we do not have a windfall tax on the enormous profits being pocketed by the energy companies and their investors. Furthermore, successive Tory governments have allowed, or failed to tackle, the arrangements that facilitate our wealthiest citizens and their companies to effectively wave two fingers at HMRC. Why does the Government facilitate the existence of shell companies, the off-shore trusts and the Crown dependencies that allow the Tories and their wealthy chums to avoid paying tax on an industrial scale? This is costing the public purse billions. The Ukrainian crisis has exposed the Tories' cosy relationship with the dirty money of the Russian oligarchs.
Meanwhile thousands here in the UK have to rely on food banks and clothing stores. What is particularly shocking is that so many of them are actually in work. Their plight can only worsen as the economic consequences of Tory mismanagement hit already over-stretched family budgets. Are we really better off together?
Eric Melvin, Edinburgh.
HEADS SHOULD ROLL OVER FMEL
THE sheer cost of the scandal at Ferguson Marine has gone beyond the "lessons will be learned" scenario and is now a resignation matter.
The Scottish Government has tried to hide much of the detail but the confusion in the ranks and the different "knowledge bases" of the minsters either concerned or later ones parachuted in speaks of a disinformation campaign.
There is a very basic question at the heart of this matter that the SNP must address. If so much effort has been spent in saving 300 jobs on the Clyde at a huge cost to the taxpayer why is the SNP, with Green support, so keen to remove tens of thousands of Scottish jobs from the North Sea oil and gas industry and even the base at Faslane with an even more collossal loss of tax revenues?
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
WHY WE HAVE HIGHER STANDING CHARGES
FRASER Grant (Letters, April 1) correctly identifies massive locational differences in charges for connection to and use of the British electricity grid. Mr Grant and most of your readers are likely to be considerably younger than I and a short history lesson might help them to understand how this situation arose.
Consider a resident of the Shetland island of Unst writing to a friend resident on one of the Isles of Scilly. He would need to purchase a first or second class stamp and the Royal Mail would provide the infrastructure and resources to deliver the letter to its destination. A letter to a near neighbour just down the road would cost exactly the same. This was known as "the postage stamp principle", with infrastructure costs spread evenly across all users regardless of geographical location.
This was the general basis of electricity charges in the pre-Thatcher nationalised industry and was retained in Scotland after privatisation but was replaced south of the Border where National Grid plc was permitted to introduce ICRP (Investment Cost Related Pricing) to make it favourable to locate new generation close to existing demand. We retained the postage stamp approach within Scotland but when exporting power to England, Scotland was treated as a large generating station located at the Border and was heavily penalised for being in the wrong place relative to the main demand centres in England and Wales.
At a later date, to my regret – but out of my hands as I had retired – National Grid plc was allowed to take operational control of the entire GB grid and to apply its locational charges across Scotland and that situation persists today.
Willie Maclean, Milngavie.
National Grid plc is responsible for the differing standing charges across the UK
LOOK TO EXPERIENCED RAIL MANAGERS
THERE are lots of ways of skinning a cat, and many ways to run a railway. I do not know what arrangements the Scottish Government is making to run a nationalised ScotRail ("First Minister seeks full control of Scotland’s railways as ScotRail nationalised", The Herald, April 1) but I do know that there are many experienced railwaymen in Scotland who could provide good advice.
I think the Government may be well advised to consider the very successful model of Scottish Water and avoid repeating the string of past and previous disastrous management decisions which have done nothing to bolster confidence in independence.
RF Morrison, Helensburgh.
INEPTITUDE OF THE DIPLOMATS
THE ordinary citizen has an expectation of competence in foreign affairs conducted on their behalf by governments. One is constantly reminded that only the best and the brightest are admitted to the diplomatic corps. Their ineptitude in foreign policy planning and arrogance in the support of the relentless eastward expansion of Nato and the offers of EU membership to Ukraine and Belarus when the next-door neighbour is a nervous Russia that has suffered two catastrophic invasions and lost the Cold War and its empire in a humiliating fashion beggars belief.
Now the consequence of their rank stupidity and ignorance of history has resulted in a possible nuclear war.
Further, the collective desire to impose further financial, social and artistic punishment on the Russian people has disturbing echoes of the post-First World War sanctions on a beaten Germany.
If these "diplomats" and "statesmen" belonged to a professional body, they would have been struck off long ago in order to protect the public.
Dr Christopher Greenhalgh, Bearsden.
* IRRESPECTIVE of the outcome of the current war the West must continue sanctions against Russia until Vladimir Putin is delivered to the International Court at The Hague to answer for war crimes.
J Patrick Maclean, Oban.
WHY TRUMP WASN'T BANNED
ADAM Tomkins ("Making the internet safer cannot come at price of free speech", The Herald, March 30) may have a point that social media companies are inconsistent in their censorship, but his example is not evidence for it. Twitter refused to ban Donald Trump from the platform while he was president on the grounds that national leaders should be exempt from the normal rules. He was banned only when he was no longer president. Ayatollah Khamenei, by contrast, is still Iran's Supreme Leader, so is covered by the same exemption that Mr Trump benefited from as President.
David Clinton, Hamilton.
POETRY AT THE CALL CENTRE
HAVING relocated on March 11 and spent the following three weeks trying to advise insurance companies, funeral arrangers, power suppliers and 23 sundry others involved in my daily existence, I have to sympathise with Rosemary Goring ("The customer is no longer king. The customer is now always on hold", The Herald, March 30). In my case there was one star in the otherwise muddy internet firmament and that was the young man at Plusnet who handled my change of address and other details. There was five minutes to wait while those details were processed and he asked what would I like to talk about. Poetry, of course. We ended discussing Housman, and A Shropshire Lad. A delightful young man and definitely the way to treat elderly customers.
On moving in here my new telephone number was faxed to my son for me (I don't own a mobile phone or other digital device) and everything has been fine. I also have to say that several of the other call-handlers have also been helpful and very kind to this old person. Sometimes it can be rather frustrating, but persistence is the thing and often opting for the "call-back" option, when you just sit and read and the call comes to you, is helpful.
What I will find when I come to deal with my banking will be a new experience as the wearing of masks makes life very difficult when trying to hear what is being said when one has tinnitus. I cannot cope with online transacting and in spite of global warming need to stay with paper billing. Life these days is rather like living on the edge of a never-ending jungle ... scary.
As for home heating: whatever happened to the old Dimplex and Economy 7? Another digital nightmare has replaced them.
Thelma Edwards, Kelso.
THE GOOD LIFE ON AILSA CRAIG
FURTHER to the letters from Celia Judge (March 24) and Bernard Zonfrillo (March 26), I was told by a lady who was brought up in the village of Maidens that when Mrs Girvan went over to Alisa Craig to run her summer tearoom she took her own goat and hens to provide ingredients for the cakes and scones which she served to trippers to the island.
Robert Knox, Alloway.
FAULT LINES
THERE are many others better qualified than myself, never much of a negotiator with young miscreants, to debate the merits of young offenders institutions and the pros and cons of short sharp shocks ("Ending lock-ups for young adults won’t achieve aims", The Herald, April 1).
However, I leave my tuppenceworth with Philip Larkin (1922-1985), librarian, poet and writer, and his This Be The Verse:
“They **** you up, your mum and dad. They do not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had. And add some extra just for you.”
R Russell Smith, Largs.
Read more: Are 300 jobs worth all the misery that has been heaped on our island communities?
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