AS usual with any high-profile loss of jobs it is difficult to penetrate the core of the issues through the plethora of politicians coming forward to declare their support for the affected workers (“Taskforce embarks on worldwide search to save steel plants”, The Herald, October 30).

The steelworks have been placed under pressure because of a lack of competitiveness in an over-supplied market. At the same time, there has been a number of projects in Scotland which could have used local steel, but it was sourced abroad.

There is a natural reaction to say that the steel should have been sourced locally. However, the contracts went abroad because of price. If we are going to insist that Scottish projects should use Scottish raw materials regardless, we have to accept that this will increase the cost of these projects and that we will all, in some form or another, have to pay for the increase in price. We may feel that this is a price we are willing to pay. During the Independence campaign and beyond, the Scottish trait, whether real or exaggerated, of generosity to our fellow man was much trumpeted.

However, in the brouhaha of the formation of task forces and son on the fact that several thousand jobs in another sector are to quietly disappear seems to have been lost.

Because of the purely populist – there is no other way to describe it – council tax freeze of the SNP, local authorities will be forced to pay off around 15 times (so far) more workers than will be lost from our steel industry (“Council staff unite in fight to save jobs from axe”, The Herald, October 29).

No MPs or MSPs are rushing to sit round a table or appear in front of the media to defend these jobs but, of course, there is not the same perceived nobility or romance (misplaced) in a local authority job as there is in the grime and sweat of the coal stack industries. But surely the job of a home help, care worker or cleansing worker is just as important.

The SNP Government cannot blame Westminster for this one. It has the solution in its own hands. It can allow local authorities to apply a relatively modest increase in council tax. Council tax may be regressive but with a little imagination (or even the introduction of an overdue radical alternative) the effects on the less affluent could be mitigated.

Yes, we will all have to pay more but, after all, as Scots aren’t we prepared to make sacrifices for our fellow travellers; or only those in the media spotlight?

William Thomson,

25 Lithgow Place, Denny.

SOME decades ago I was employed by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes. At that time, the Revenue operated on the entirely fair principle, that the more money made, the more tax was paid. Sadly, this has been completely turned on its head.

Nowadays the "high rollers", via skilled accountants and financial advisors, can utilise a multitude of loopholes in the system to avoid paying large chunks of tax, and in some cases pay no tax at all.

I do not blame the individuals for taking this advantage, for the guilt lies with a series of Westminster governments, which throughout the years have allowed the explosion in tax loopholes to go unchecked.

If someone, or some company, makes money in this country, it is in this country they should pay their tax, and, if they are making a lot of money, they should pay a lot of tax, not trifling amounts.

It is obscene that in a society, where tens of thousands of pounds are squandered on the vanity of a personalised number plate, queues are forming at more and more food banks but it is even more obscene for the mega rich to

Joseph G Miller,

44 Gardeners Street, Dunfermline.