Letters: Will Nicola Sturgeon be able to keep a straight face when Douglas Ross turns up at FMQs?

It will be very difficult for Nicola Sturgeon at this week’s First Minister's Questions to keep a straight face when Mr Ross gets to his feet. And before Labour Party adherents get too far ahead of themselves, mainstream political journalists would do well to remind the likes of Sir Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Lisa Nandy, David Lammy et al that they campaigned tirelessly at the last General Election to have Putin’s representative in the UK, aka Jeremy Corbyn, to be the next British Prime Minster. Don’t let them forget that and be careful what you wish for.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh.

* FOR months now, Douglas Ross has swithered and dithered and flipped and flopped, his support for the Prime Minister waxing and waning. The excuse for Mr Ross's first U-turn was the Ukraine war, but now he has made his second U-turn, although the Ukraine war still rages.

Boris Johnson remains in Downing Street, for now. But after doing his U-turn on a U-turn, Mr Ross's survival as leader of the Scottish Conservatives looks a lot more precarious. After all, it is no mean feat to make yourself look even more ridiculous than Mr Johnson, but that's exactly what Mr Ross has managed to achieve.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

MPS ARE NOT WORTHY

EVEN before the vote it became increasingly obvious that certain Tory MPs would prefer to keep their positions rather than vote out an individual, who happens to be our Prime Minister, who seems to think that the old school tie and a pat on the back is sufficient to keep him in post.

These MPs are worse than their boss and are spineless individuals. They are not worthy to represent the British public.

Neil Stewart, Balfron.

NEW LEADER MUST BE FOUND

I FULLY support my MP John Lamont and the other Conservative MPs who voted against Boris Johnson. Most Scots now see Mr Johnson as a richt scunner.

Our bellicose Foreign Secretary and other Cabinet ministers claim that it's time to draw a line and move on. No it isn't. With 40 per cent of Tory MPs having no confidence in the Prime Minister that is impossible. The PM must go.

His supporters claim there is no obvious successor. That is the whole point of a leadership contest: to find a successor out of 359 MPs. History shows a dark horse can emerge to take the laurels.

However, one good thing emerges from this imbroglio – it's democracy in action. Meanwhile the SNP continues to impose a Stalinist grip on its politicians preventing any dissent.

William Loneskie, Lauder.

* O TEMPORA o mores. It is indeed a sign of the depths to which the Conservative Party has sunk that the majority of its MPs could not think of a viable successor to Boris Johnson and hoped to save their seats by sticking with him. I sincerely hope that the British electorate sends them a different message at the coming by-elections.

A Trombala, Stirling.

* IF one of your strongest and certainly most vocal public supporter is Nadine Dorries, you surely must recognise that you are in serious trouble.

Willie Towers, Alford.

HYPOCRISY OVER FIXED PENALTIES

HAVING watched the media feeding like piranhas over birthday celebrations during working hours and 148 MPs declaring that a fixed penalty fine branded the recipient as unsuitable for government, can we presume that any of the 148 or any media pundit who has received a fixed penalty for parking, speeding or their child's absence from school will resign before the day is out?

James Watson, Dunbar.

DAVIDSON AGREED ON INDY MANDATE

I WOULD like to correct a factual inaccuracy from Walter Paul (Letters, June 4) in his response to my letter of June 3.

He erroneously assumed that the SNP was "my own party". Although it was very clear from the tone of my letter that I am a supporter of independence for Scotland, I was very careful not to state whether or not I am a member of a political party – because it was not relevant to the point I wished to make.

My point – that the Scottish people have already voted that they want a second referendum on Scottish independence – could just as easily have been made by a representative of the Greens or the SSP. In fact, even a leader of the Conservative Party made this exact point in the not-too-distant past. For those who don't believe me, here's what Ruth Davidson had to say on the night of the Holyrood count in 2011: "I think you have to take a look at what it means to be winning ... and you don't get a referendum for free, you have to earn it. So if the Greens and the SNP and if the SSP – or any of the other parties who have declared an interest in independence – get over the line and can make a coalition, make a majority, get the votes in parliament, then they'll vote through a referendum..."

Perhaps Baroness Davidson can further clarify things for Mr Paul in a way that I was not able to. She continued: "That's what democracy's all about... It's perfectly simple."

David Patrick, Edinburgh.

* I DON’T always find myself in agreement with Kevin McKenna but his excoriating review of the SNP (“The SNP are tartan Tories and they’re not even hiding it”, The Herald, June 6) was bang on target.

Congratulations for hitting the bullseye.

Ian Martin, Milngavie.

OUR NHS IS BETTER FUNDED

JILL Stephenson (Letters, June 7) fails to understand that the main reason for the squeeze on the Scottish Government’s budget is down to UK inflation and a high cost of living crisis caused by Brexit that Scotland didn’t vote for. As Labour tries to outdo the Tories by surrounding Sir Keir Starmer with even larger Union Flags, it has given up on rejoining the EU.

In normal countries opposition leaders would unite in encouraging people to complete the census in the national interest rather than undermining the exercise. Health and education are politicised by unionists in Scotland, and amplified by their media allies, to an extent that is not the case in England or Wales.

At the weekend the outgoing EIS chief Larry Flanagan, no SNP stooge, said a narrative had developed that education is failing, “which is completely untrue as Scottish education is way ahead of the English system”. He added that although politicians keep referencing the PISA results to try to portray Scottish attainment in a poor light, there is “little difference between the different jurisdictions in terms of attainment”.

Scotland's NHS is better funded and resourced to serve the population with more GPs, nurses and hospital beds per head of population resulting in shorter waiting lists and the like.

The recent report, Resetting the Course for Population Health, published by the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, assessed the UK Government economic austerity policies as the most likely contributory cause of people across the UK dying younger, with people living in the poorest areas hardest hit ("Austerity blamed as good health ends at 46 for the poorest Scots", The Herald, June 7).

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh.

* I WAS interested to see such an emphatic headline, and even more stark content, which blamed Westminster for a "good health" slump in Scotland. Whilst your article itself was devoid of any real evidence of how or why "Tory austerity" was the root cause of such a slump (and indeed the methods of measuring this were barely scientific), it did instil in me a curiosity to find out more about the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH).

A quick visit to its website confirms that GCPH is "funded by the Scottish Government". In conclusion therefore, a Scottish Government-funded public body has managed to find that UK policy is to blame for worsening Scottish health outcomes but apportions no blame to the body that not only funds it, but has huge responsibility for areas that could directly affect Scottish public health outcomes. Fancy that.

Jamie Black, Largs.

Read more: Extremists have reduced Glasgow to a shadow of its former self