Let's have an award for decency in politics in honour of Lord James

I wasn’t a crony of John Swinney’s leadership or of Nicola Sturgeon, then health spokesperson, who did not even speak to some of us. Cronies were given debate spots within weeks. I logged anything from folk music to dead martyrs over a year ahead of hundreds of thousands with chronic pain. Sufferers were kept waiting 17 months. Three motions became time-barred. Finally the SNP hierarchy offered February 2002; but for a Thursday evening, that’s when MSPs rushed home, especially those with distant constituencies. There would be few MSPs seen by the multitude of public supporters the issue had attracted, I despaired. Suddenly, James Douglas-Hamilton called. I wasn’t a friend but he privately offered to give up his own member's debate space on transport on a Wednesday evening.

I was astounded. "But I didn't ask you," I said. "You didn't need to," he replied. "My subject is important but nothing can be more important than people in pain.”

Gulp. James could lift spirits from the political gutter by his sheer decency and personal refusal to put party lines above human decency.

The gallery was packed that Wednesday night, and MSPs were there in strength, not Ms Sturgeon of course.

That debate attracted 130,000 letters and emails, still the highest in Holyrood’s history. Later in May 2002, before a health committee vote for more chronic pain help, Ms Sturgeon and Mr Swinney got the chief whip to tell me to leave the health committee before that vote. I refused - instead I left the SNP as the only way to remain in my last year as an MSP to continue the pain campaign, which I still do voluntarily, over 20 years later. It’s again at risk from the SNP Government. But it could have died back in 2002 had it not been for one true gentleman.

What about a Douglas-Hamilton award for cross-party decency for the next Herald politics dinner?

Dorothy-Grace Elder, Glasgow.

Read more: To save the NHS we must return to a GP out-of-hours on-call service

More GPs must be recruited

I WRITE to support the views of retired doctors Slater and McNicol (Letters, December 5 & 6).

In the early to mid 1980s, I worked stints in a GP out of hours deputising service in Dundee, where a nurse would direct me (or any one else sharing the duty) to the homes of patients of a number of practices who had called the service to request medical advice.

Obviously, this was a long time before ubiquitous smartphones and Dr Google, and I did not audit my work in the same dispassionate way as Dr McNicol, but I do agree that admissions to hospital were uncommon.

I think that a further factor which complicates this issue is that I would suspect that a proportion of A&E staff will themselves be young, comparatively inexperienced and thus even more risk-averse. This possibly leads to admissions which, had they been seen by a more experienced practitioner, might have been able to be discharged sooner.

However, to enable a return to this sort of primary care service would require a significant increase in both the numbers of doctors entering and, perhaps even more importantly, remaining in general practice for their professional lives, not least to allow some recuperation time after a night on call.

Christopher W Ide, Waterfoot.

How can we solve Scotland's GP problem? (Image: Getty)

Where is God in all this?

THE harrowing photograph of two children injured in the Israel/Palestine war ("Caught in the crossfire", The Herald, December 4, and Letters, December 5) must surely make people ask where God is in all this. Yet not a word from the Church in your pages.

Surely this is not one of God’s mysterious ways, in which He is alleged to work, and so often trotted out as an answer to that question.

I am not trying to be facetious or funny about the tragedies of war that diminish us all, but one is driven to the conclusion spoken by the comedian Woody Allen, who claimed that God is basically an underachiever. He must be, or He would stop this, and He would have stopped others. Or are the forces of evil simply unstoppable? Some serious answer would be welcome to many.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.

Read more: When will our leaders wake up to this hideous reality in Gaza?

BBC News at 11

I WATCHED the News at One on BBC1 today (December 6) and counted one newsreader, one weather man and a further nine correspondents for a half-hour programme, all giving us their opinions and expertise in various areas of news.

It's no wonder that the BBC has called for an increase in licence fees.

These correspondents have all to be paid, and a large proportion on eye-watering contracts.

Do we need them and should our licence fee help to finance them? I don't think so.

Neil Stewart, Balfron.

The shunning of a great explorer

I READ with interest the article on Mark Agnew, who kayaked through the Northwest Passage ("Scots kayaker wins top award for epic journey through Northwest Passage", The Herald, December 5).

It was Dr John Rae, an Orcadian, who discovered the final part of the Northwest Passage with the help of the Inuit people who lived in the Artic Circle. John Rae also found the remains of the Franklin expedition and also found there had been cannibalism. On Rae’s return to the UK he faced a campaign of denial led by Franklin’s widow and Charles Dickens.

Dr John Rae was the only explorer of that time not to be knighted and is buried in St Magnus Cathedral graveyard, Kirkwall..

The book Fatal Passage by Ken McGoogan tells the story.

R Allan Richardson, Beith.