STRUAN Stevenson says farmers deserve our support in the uncertainties of a post-Brexit world of unfair competition from abroad ("Scotland’s farmers are facing a Covid-19 Brexit breakdown", The Herald, June 6).
It is unclear to me why this should be so. As I recall, the farming community was very much in favour of Brexit. This seemed incomprehensible at the time, given its reliance on European Union subsidies (as Mr Stevenson acknowledges). Nevertheless, farmers got the result in the referendum they wanted, so they are in no position to complain now.
A rather apt quotation springs to mind: "as ye sow, so shall ye reap."
Alan Jenkins, Glasgow G13.
Earning top marks
IT was heartening to learn that the First Minister has ruled out tuition fees as an expedient for assisting Scottish university finances ("Universities’ ambitions ‘put on hold’", The Herald, June 5). She is absolutely right not to inflict the burden of paying for lockdown on the young. The Scottish Government should be commended for having been true to the exemplary Scottish tradition of free higher education.
Nicola Sturgeon would have every excuse to compromise now on this issue, but has refused to do so. She thus confirms herself as a principled leader. Top marks.
Alistair Duff, Cumbernauld.
A one-way street?
GUY Stenhouse ("Economic liberty, not state interference, is way to rebuild prosperity", The Herald, June 8) is rather selective in making his case for the free market, not state interference, in boosting the economy post Covid-19. If the free market is the way forward on the way up, why has he not condemned the Government's intervention to try to reduce mass unemployment on the way down?
Sam Craig, Glasgow G11.
Out on a limb?
DURING this time of lockdown much has been made of the Westminster "magic money tree". This made me think of a film that I had seen when I was a lot younger. I looked it up and on Google and found it. Called It Grows on Trees, it describes the happenings when two newly planted trees produce $5 bills. The family involved enjoy the fruits of their harvest for a full summer. The problems arise when the seasons change and the $5 bills wither and die.
Is there a lesson here, I wonder?
Ian Gray, Croftamie.
X-ray vision
IT might be helpful to remember that neither patients nor diseases come with instruction manuals and that doctors, nurses, administrators and even politicians do their very best with the information available.
I once managed the care of a little girl who had been run over by an ice-cream van. The tabloid headline the next day was “It took them three X-rays to find she had a broken pelvis”. That is correct: first X-ray was cervical spine, second was chest and third was pelvis. These were the recommended trauma series X-rays, dealing with life-threatening injuries in order of importance.
David Ross, Stirling.
Camley’s crackers
FABULOUS cartoon by Steven Camley in today’s Herald (Ju, showing Donald Trump in his White House bunker, frantically completely an “Orange Lives Matter” placard. There have been a fair few other crackers recently, too. My thanks to Steven for keeping us all smiling during these strange times.
Doug Maughan, Dunblane.
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