Letters: Sunak could easily help the poor. Why won't he?

Banks create money under licence from the government. To maximise the economy there should be full employment at decent wages. If banks create insufficient money to achieve this in the private sector then government should do so by spending in the public sector.

The only limit to public expenditure is from the onset of wage-driven inflation which government can address by reduced expenditure and increased taxes.

Current inflation is due largely to the rise in international commodity prices. No amount of interest rate fiddling by the Bank of England can address this.

There is no reason why Rishi Sunak cannot help the impending poverty and hardship for those at the bottom of the social scale. Only political dogma, economic ignorance and characteristic meanness of spirit prevents this. He did so when Covid hit so why cannot he do it again?

John Moreland, Killearn.

COST OF LIVING WILL BE KEY FACTOR

REBECCA McQuillan ("Don’t celebrate yet, Nicola. SNP reign could be shaken by cost-of-living crisis", The Herald, April 8) puts forward some interesting analysis regarding voting patterns and the forthcoming local elections. The cost of living crisis is going to impact on every household in the country as she says, but it will disproportionately affect the vulnerable who include those on benefits (and state pensions) who received a lower-than-inflation increase from the Chancellor.

Ms McQuillan mentions recent opinion polls; one of the findings was that 63% of voters felt Finance Secretary Kate Forbes should be doing more in the midst of the crisis, sentiments I am sure Ms Forbes would agree with. However, the Scottish Parliament has no borrowing powers, its hands are tied and is dependent on Rishi Sunak – whose response to the cost of living crisis was to give every household a £200 loan, to be paid back, and to reduce household council tax bills by £150 per year. All very well, but if you are exempt from paying council tax, you may well be missing out on £150 and if you are living in fuel poverty, paying back a loan could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

This cost of living crisis is a real one for millions of hard-working families, millions who depend on benefits and millions who have been grateful for the Scottish Government’s mitigating measures in the form of its welfare fund, which has increased massively during the pandemic. The Scottish Government has prioritised tackling child poverty, as Ms McQuillan alluded to, with the Scottish Child Payment due to more than double this year to £25 a week.

The cost of living will certainly be a factor in the local elections – how could it not be? Voters will have the final say and they have given a clear verdict over the last decade and half here in Scotland. At no time during this time has Scotland voted for a Conservative government at Westminster, or for that matter, a Labour or LibDem majority in Scotland, and with the present opposition in Scotland I don’t think that is about to change any time soon.

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk.

LET DOWN BY OUR LEADERS

THINGS are not working in our country at the moment, nor have they been for several years. I agree with Kevin McKenna's column ("Sturgeon and Salmond should move on: Their time is over", The Herald, April 9) with regards to Scotland. Boris Johnson should now not be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and those in his own sycophantic party who voted him into that very important position should hang their heads in shame.

Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and others are not fit to hold the positions in which they find themselves – the former because he is currently living up to the oft-quoted phrase "there are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics", and the latter because, as Lawrence Pertillar says in his poem Wishes to be Liked", "Nor will I ever believe one I suspect, To have a leadership position.

But cannot make a decision. With kept wishes to be liked."

I am so, so angry about the political state of our country, and indeed the world, that I spent time tracing a copy of a poem called Parable of the Talents by the American Octavia E Butler, which I wish to repeat here:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be lead by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery".

Sadly the last sentence cannot be heard by the Russians who are living under the rule of Putin.

Walter Paul, Glasgow.

BUCK STOPS WITH THE VOTERS

I WOULD disagree with Nicola Sturgeon's mealy-mouthed acceptance of blame while tying herself in knots with the double negative – "I didn't not say to sign the ferry contracts" – and "we are a collective therefore the buck stops with me".

I say this, not in her defence, but because she is simply exploiting the gullible electorate who have voted her and the SNP back into power despite her previous "judge me on education" Curriculum for Excellence lying in tatters, and they may vote for her again. No, the buck stops with them, not Ms Sturgeon.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. But it seems she can fool some of them all the time.

Voters should remember this the next time they or a loved one's consultation or medical procedure is cancelled or comes too late, when they cannot get an appointment or procedure this side of Christmas. Many still seem unaware it is the Scottish Government that has full autonomy over the NHS in Scotland but clap like performing seals when the First Minister deflects this as the fault of a big bad posh Tory in Westminster.

They should remember this when they are driving around the traffic cones, barriers, temporary traffic lights and over the thousands of potholes on their way to the polling booth and perhaps think of how many drug deaths could have been avoided, food banks made extinct, littered streets cleaned and services supported with the millions squandered on malicious prosecutions, compensation pay-outs, pretendy foreign embassies and the ferry follies while reducing the shipbuilding pride of the Clyde to joke status.

No, it's not Ms Sturgeon; the buck stops with us.

Allan Thompson, Bearsden.

CREDIT TO THE PM WHERE IT'S DUE

STEWART F Falconer (Letters, April 8), asserts that there is not one thing that Boris Johnston can be proud of.

I will give off the top of my head just two examples. The first was his swift decision-making when this dreadful Covid virus first raised its head and showed it was a truly deadly danger to mankind. Whilst other countries dithered and procrastinated, especially the EU members, Mr Johnson acted by investing billions to find and secure a safe vaccine from scratch. Had he waited like everyone else who knows how many extra thousands would have died or been seriously ill and of course as a result of which, the NHS would have fallen over.

The second is the leadership role the Prime Minister has taken in Ukraine in terms of sanctions and aid. It is on record that its President acknowledges the vital role undertaken by the UK Government in supplying the defensive armaments that has helped to mitigate the still-dreadful death toll being suffered by the Ukrainian people.

So yes, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the letter of April 6 from Allan Sutherland which so upset Mr Falconer. Partygate, Wallpapergate and the rest of the gates still to be unearthed can wait their time to be answered, but in the meantime give credit where it is due to this Prime Minister.

James Martin, Bearsden.