Why should SNP expect rUK to cover for its mistakes?

Now we see Shona Robison asking Keir Starmer to spend more here (“‘Be bold, Keir’: SNP in desperate plea to Starmer for funding boost if he becomes PM”, January 14). No self-respecting Scottish Parliament of any colour, let alone one of a nationalist hue, should be expecting the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland to be covering up for poor management of our finances here, but that is effectively what Ms Robison is asking them to do. The long list of projects she wants to invest in/throw money at are all devolved. They need money spent on them as the SNP has not done that in 17 years.

Seventeen years? Is that how long it has been in for? No wonder the country is falling apart. The best way to get more investment from a Labour UK Government would be to have a Labour-led administration at Holyrood which can work with it to deliver a shared agenda. That would have a much greater chance of success. So, if we do get a change in government at a UK level, can we have a Scottish Parliament election immediately afterwards please, just to make full use of the opportunity provided?

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy.

Booze tax is a must

SCOTTISH Labour is proposing a booze tax with money raised used to fund treatments for people with alcohol problems. It should replace minimum pricing of alcohol, which has achieved nothing in tackling the problem of heavy drinking and does not raise one penny for treatment of those in need and is only supported by those with a political agenda.

The Scottish Government has in fact made things worse for drug and alcohol treatment in Scotland by drastically cutting back budgets on treatment programmes. A booze tax would help restart help for those in need.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen.

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How to make our universities work

THE number of free university places reserved at Scottish universities for those who have lived in Scotland for three years could be slashed because of savage SNP spending cuts. Already the number of places for those living in Scotland have been restricted since Scottish universities need foreign students and those from England to balance the books and pay for high-earning university staff.

The average salary of the head of a university is £260,000 and a lecturer gets £40,761, a senior lecturer £51,590, an associate professor £64,356 and a professor £90,891. Poor darlings, how do they make ends meet?

To add to the insult they get very long holidays. They should all work more days and longer hours and fit in more Scottish, English and foreign students. Problem solved.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

Labour's shadow defence secretary John Healey (Image: PA)

A new reality in defence

BORIS Johnson's Integrated Review Of Security, Defence, Development And Foreign Policy in 2021 announced UK involvement in the Indo-Pacific region as a response to the emergence of China. Now the Labour shadow defence secretary, John Healey, has announced a rather more realistic policy in the years ahead: one based on UK defence needs not business interests. Mr Healey, significantly, refused to designate China as a threat.

In the 13 years of UK Conservative Government, the Royal Navy has been reduced by 25 per cent of its warships; it will be the end of the decade before we see the Type 26 and Type 31e Frigates replacing the rust-bucket Type 23s, which are 40 years old and proving difficult to man due to recruitment failures. There are 45,000 fewer forces with 200 RAF aircraft taken out of service.That is truly remarkable given the war on our doorstep in Ukraine and conflict in Palestine. Where the UK can assist, as with AUKUS, would only be with technology and diplomacy.

As usual with shadow spokesmen, scared of frightening the horses, Mr Healey would not be drawn on the number of warships the UK requires, nor the size of a future defence budget.Yet going it alone in support of Ukraine, where a future President Trump threatens to block all military aid, and may even keep his promise to withdraw from Nato, demands an answer. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps talks, unrealistically, of the UK doing just that, even as the European Union draws back. Russia is all too well aware that British Storm Shadow missiles have had recent success against its navy in the Black Sea. Russia now has warships sailing past our coast with hypersonic missiles.The two events are not unrelated.

What was welcome, in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute, was Mr Healey's desire for a defence and security pact with the EU, and a focus on Europe, the North Atlantic, Arctic and where we have a major interest, for example, the Gulf. The suggestion of a joint defence policy with the EU is to be welcomed as an era of realpolitik dawns.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing.

Greens are essential

MY dear mother, Ellen Sweeney, always used to tell me how essential it was to have my greens. It is no less essential, I would argue years later, that the Greens are always included in any future government in Scotland or, indeed, elsewhere.

We live in a world of hyper-capitalism driven by the pursuit of endless growth based on the exploitation of labour and nature. While the Conservative, Liberal and Labour parties all emerged in the 19th century to struggle over the exploitation of labour, class, wages, profit and wealth, the Green parties only emerged in the 20th century in response to the exploitation of nature and the emerging crises in multiple ecological systems.

In the 21st century, it is only some combination of the 19th-century labour-focused parties and the 20th-century green-focused parties that have the best potential to deal with the ever-intensifying creative and destructive animal spirits of capitalism as it exploits labour and nature and challenges democracy, identity, culture, sustainability, peace and more.

Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, South Australia.

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Birth rate fall is good news

IT is extraordinary how demographic decline in China - it has this week registered a decline in population for a second consecutive year - is widely greeted with dismay as if humanity were about to enter a period of terminal decline and extinction.

We know the world is over-populated, that the expansion of the human race is causing untold problems to the environment, climate and resources. We know all this but act as if we don’t.

A declining population is an opportunity that we should welcome. It shows that, even if the state is blind, individuals are taking responsibility for their own futures and that of their offspring. Sure, an ageing population is a problem in the short term and will call for adjustments in the way we run our affairs, but it IS short term. The long-term benefits should be plain to see.

And yet we still talk about growth, exploitation of ever-diminishing finite resources and fail to see the distinction between weather and climate.

There is a huge disconnect between what we know we should be doing, and what we are prepared to do about it. Unfortunately, this is true at the personal level as well as .

Until we break out of this state of denial, humanity will indeed condemn itself and life on Earth to extinction.

Trevor Rigg, Edinburgh.

Depression: A beacon of hope

NEIL Mackay's article ("‘Cancer of the self’: Are microdoses of psychedelic drugs the cure for depression?", January 14) is without doubt one of the best articles I have read on the subject of depression (and I have read a lot).

Your Writer at Large talks to Dr Philip Gould (a biological psychiatrist, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and apparently a charming man) who has spent thousands of hours treating depressed patients. The article is a triumph of considered information, understanding and intellect. Above all it recognises the role anti-depressant drugs and CBT play in treating sufferers.

Although there are new drugs coming onto the market they are not magic bullets. Dr Gould's research work and observations are a beacon of hope for sufferers and I believe this piece should be required reading for all medical professionals dealing with this issue.

Ian Ramsden, Paisley.