We don't need yet more documents, we need proper action

He clearly is the continuity candidate, as Nicola Sturgeon got her headlines with a similar stunt – introducing her legal right to NHS treatment within 12 weeks in 2012. How many times has this legal right been broken? By 2021, the total number of breaches was over 312,000. That is 312,000 patients who have been denied a legal right, have been left in pain and discomfort and may well have died waiting for treatment.

Just like his predecessor, I am sure that Mr Yousaf’s words will look good on paper but will do nothing to improve the quality of life of the ordinary Scot.

Jane Lax, Aberlour.

• IF anything demonstrates how tired, stale and pedestrian this SNP administration is, it is Humza Yousaf’s publication of the latest “Independence Prospectus” paper.

Whilst the people of Scotland suffer catastrophic failures across all aspects of domestic policy such as drugs deaths, a crumbling NHS service, infrastructure debacles (think ferries and the A9) are we to be excited as to the First Minister’s ideas and visionary offerings? How naive to think that weighty issues such as a monarchy referendum, a written constitution and protecting the right to strike will form the battleground at the next election This nonsense of a document simply highlights how desperate this country is for change away from an utterly hapless SNP administration.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh.

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Why obsess about sovereignty?

WHY do nationalists of all hues obsess about sovereignty and symbols? Your correspondents Margaret McGowan and Alastair Galloway (Letters, June 19) might as well be engaging in a debate with St Thomas Aquinas about the number of angels able to dance on the head of a pin for all its relevance to modern life in Scotland.

Social justice won’t be achieved by applying the Scottish barons’ self-serving Declaration of Arbroath.

What Scots need is good-quality, fair-rent housing, decent well-paid jobs, education and training systems that work and an NHS and care system that protects the sick and vulnerable.

The SNP can’t provide this because of its unbelievable incompetence and ineptitude. The Tories won’t provide it because their philosophy is based on avarice and profit. They just don’t care.

There will be a General Election in 2024. The electorate will then be able to give their opinion on the shambles created by the SNP and Tory Governments.

In the meantime the lucky voters of East Kilbride West and Rutherglen & Hamilton West have an early opportunity to express their verdicts.

James Quinn, Lanark.

Labour gambling on the climate

OH, if only hot air could power up the Great British Energy Company. Edinburgh would be enjoying a heatwave unrelated to the weather, fuelled by Sir Keir Starmer as part of his campaign to woo Scots voters. Edinburgh, with the only Labour MP in Scotland, Ian Murray, is the chosen venue for Labour promises to continue North Sea oil and gas extraction from existing fields, including those that the Conservatives grant licences to before the next General Election ("Scotland to be UK's 'beating heart' under Labour's clean energy plan", heraldscotland, June 19). A case of allowing someone else to do the dirty work.

Labour is now called "Tory-lite" for a reason. Labour’s "Five Mission Statements" include securing the highest sustained growth in the G7, making the UK a clean entry superpower by 2030, fixing the NHS, fixing the police and breaking down barriers for the young. Rishi Sunak also has "Five Pledges", to grow the economy, reduce NHS waiting lists, turn back small boats, halve inflation and reduce the National Debt. That is one difference – Labour will increase the National Debt to pay for its policies. Neither party will address the increasingly distressing consequences of Brexit, and the rising desire for self-determination.

Ignoring the fact that neither leader seems to count past the fingers on one hand, do you have confidence in anyone who ignores the cost of living crisis and is happy to gamble on the climate crisis? Ian Murray voted against setting up a cross-party committee at Westminster to focus on the cost of living, perhaps because it was suggested by the SNP. The Labour and Conservative parties are bitterly determined on vetoing any attempt by the elected and overwhelming majority of Scotland’s MPs to improve the lives of their constituents. Playground point-scoring may suit Westminster, it doesn’t suit Scotland.

Frances Scott, Edinburgh.

Over to you, Sir Keir

I HAVE been reflecting on Boris Johnson’s time in office and the readiness with which his backers, albeit dwindling in numbers, rushed to his defence and in so doing supported his destructive attitude to our parliamentary and democratic processes.

I suggest that your readers reflect upon the shameful image of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg lounging on the benches of the House of Commons with his eyes closed, thereby demonstrating the contempt in which he holds Parliament. Yet he gets “rewarded” with a knighthood by Boris Johnson. The perfect demonstration of the UK’s broken political and media cultures which reward misbehaviour, such as that of Mr Rees-Mogg, not to mention the disinformation employed by the Leave campaign in 2016.

Mr Johnson himself gets a well-paid job with the Daily Mail earning “a six-figure sum” (“Johnson’s new role ‘a clear breach’ of rules”, The Herald, June 17). Cronies and party donors prospered during the pandemic. Press barons revelled in their influence. The poor and otherwise-disadvantaged suffered. Public servants watched their wages decline in relative terms over the 13 years of Conservative austerity.

Mr Johnson and his acolytes have destroyed the trust without which society cannot exist. However such loss does not matter to them. Remember Mrs Thatcher’s assertion that “there is no such thing as society”, one of the foundational planks of neoliberalism.

The UK is in the midst of several crises, public sector pay and unaffordable flexible mortgage interest rates, not to mention poverty and unacceptable levels of inequality. I hope Sir Keir Starmer has the courage and creativity to be able to resolve these issues.

John Milne, Uddingston.

• THERE may be justifiable reasons for abstaining from casting a vote, whether in the House of Commons or elsewhere.

The principle one must be on the grounds of conscience.

However, cronyism or cowardice should not be included among them.

Malcolm Allan, Bishopbriggs.

The man who put SNP on the map

I WOULD like to add a few comments to Hugh MacDonald's fine tribute to George Leslie ("Vet who became influential figure in the Scottish nationalist movement", Herald Obituary, June 17).

First of all, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the Pollok by-election of March 1967. For the SNP to win nearly 11,000 votes in a Glasgow constituency was unheard of at that time, and Scottish politics was electrified. It is generally believed that the by-election was the beginning of the modern SNP, and Winnie Ewing many times acknowledged that the result of the Pollok by-election was a significant factor in her win at Hamilton later that year.

I fully concur with the names of the people Mr MacDonald includes as part of the SNP team at that time, but I would add two more names, because the last time I spoke to George Leslie we reminisced about the Pollok campaign, and George paid a heartfelt tribute to two people in particular who had been very important throughout that campaign; Bob MacDougall, for many long years a hard-working activist in Pollok, and Gordon Wilson, a young lawyer who skilfully directed the campaign and who went on to become a highly-respected leader of the SNP.

Mr Leslie served as a councillor on Glasgow Corporation, and as a Strathclyde Regional councillor; within the SNP he made a huge contribution to developing party policy on a range of issues and was admired and respected across the political spectrum. But he will probably always be best remembered for the breakthrough at Pollok '67 – the by-election which put the SNP firmly on the electoral map and changed Scotland for ever.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.