Tories have set the agenda. Labour and SNP should follow their lead

I can't remember a time when it was made so clear to the populace by all parties and media, including the SNP, that if you want better services and benefits, you need to pay more tax; if you want lower taxes you need to accept fewer services and benefits, and if you want to grow the "cake" many of the record high number of people registered unemployed, not working but receiving disability and other benefits need to fill the 900k job vacancies in the UK instead of relying on a net immigration of (last year) 692k people.

The whole cost issue has also spread to a brutal reality check on the enormous cost of infrastructure to reach Net Zero by 2050.

It looks like a Labour Government won't deviate much from Wednesday's Budget, or its long-term commitments and it may be better placed to pursue the objectives without inheriting the "Tory austerity" stamp on their foreheads.

But the Conservatives have begun to raise and tackle issues that Keir Starmer also seems to agree with, that Scottish Tories should embrace, and the SNP should follow. I welcome Rishi Sunak's clarity on gender, guidelines for schools sex education, the banning of mobiles in schools and a childcare scheme that if implemented here would have saved the parents of two of my grandchildren around £15k in one year.

The Conservatives' education reforms mean England's PISA scores are way above Scotland and their delay of net zero targets to 2035 have saved their opponents a humiliating U-turn and their announcement of a £3 billion spend on IT-driven productivity in the NHS is similar to the Labour Health Spokesman's proposals.

I just hope the Scottish Tories, Labour and the SNP can swallow their pride and follow suit.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

Showing their true colours

IN the final days of this Tory Government, Jeremy Hunt has produced his final Budget, skewering Labour with his ruse of purloining Labour's policy to scrap the non-dom tax status.

That ruse has spiked Labour's guns in its plan to use the proceeds from that source to fund areas in the NHS if it becomes the next government. Now it will have to scramble around to find alternative sources of funding to meet that objective.

We have also witnessed the true colours of this failing Government with its duplicitous rhetoric. When the Chancellor came out with the remark that public services would have to learn to do more with less, that was tantamount to saying that they will have to run faster to stay in the same place. All that means is that there will be a downsizing in public services.

Mr Hunt boasted that debt levels are going down, but debt levels are predicted to rise until 2028, when there will then be a slight dip in debt levels, though they will still be higher than those of today even with that dip.

Should Labour manage to translate its poll lead into becoming the incoming government, it will be left with little wriggle room to transform the UK's economy owing to the fiscal legacy left behind by the Conservatives. That will make it an easy target for the vitriol of the right-wing media and could consign it to being a one-term government, leaving the door of 10 Downing Street wide open for the return of the most radical right-wing regime ever.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

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A stagnant Budget

THE well-trailed 2p cut in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) has dominated the Budget headlines, amounting to a net tax cut of £9 billion. However, this is dwarfed by Tory stealth tax rises of an estimated £27bn that came into effect last year, and a further £19bn coming in after the General Election.

The tax burden is now at a 70-year high, and people have taken an unprecedented hit to their living standards in recent years. Those earning £19,000 or less will now be worse off because, as more of their pay is dragged above the frozen tax-free allowance of £12,570, they’ll lose more than they gain from NIC cuts. The biggest gainers are those earning £50,000, meaning that this is a Budget that will hit the poorest hardest.

Looking over the longer term, the average wage after taking account of inflation will take until 2026 to get back to its 2008 level: nearly two decades of lost pay growth.

Beware the Budget smoke and mirrors, the Chancellor is giving with one hand and taking more with the other, a stagnant Budget from a stagnant Government.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh.

A blow for the climate

HOW can we believe that the current Government is serious about tackling climate change?

On Tuesday we had the announcement that rail fares are to rise by 5%. Today (March 6), in the Budget, it is announced that petrol duties remain unchanged for the 13th year.

Effectively, the Government is encouraging us to drive more and use trains less. Petrol is now relatively cheaper than it was back in the 1970s before the oil crisis created by the oil-producing countries raising crude oil prices significantly. At the time, this brought about significant change in driving habits: people car-pooled, switched to smaller cars and generally drove less. Manufacturers worked to produce more efficient engines and introduced smaller vehicles to their ranges.

Today more and more people are driving ever-larger SUV-type vehicles. Gains in engine efficiency are negated by bigger, heavier vehicles and people seem to be driving more and using public transport or active travel less: exactly the opposite of what we should be doing if we are serious about dealing with climate change.

Is this what the Government wants?

Boyd Johnston, Paisley.

Was the Budget bad for the climate? (Image: Getty)

Confusion about Nato

JOHN Jamieson (Letters, March 7) is confused about Nato membership.

An emerging state of Scotland would not be a member of any alliances.

No state joins Nato without applying. Then it’s up to compliance with some rules about democracy and effort, and the consent of all existing member states. Application requires acceptance of the principle that all defend any.

I believe it’s the policy of the larger pro-independence party to apply to join Nato. This is one many adjustments made to attract voters who are not necessarily anti-democratic leftists, utopians, pacifists or monarchy-haters. A pool of votes confined to those strands of opinion would not attain any nationalist aims.

There is also a sizeable body of opinion favouring a democracy joining an alliance of democracies.

The customer which leases the nukes remains the UK. Scotland would need to decide whether to lease the existing bases to the UK for a welcome rental income. That would need broad consent of the people. It would also be less likely with Scotland outwith Nato. The UK in addition would have an opinion about docking her strategic deterrent in another country. Military bases on the territory of a friendly ally are one thing, and the base supporting a deterrent of last resort is another.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland.

• I ADMIRE your correspondents' tenacity (Letters, March 7) in claiming that those who would prefer the UK to remain intact somehow do not understand the SNP case for having nuclear weapons at the same time as banning them. I am happy to be a member of that group, who would be better named realists.

Only the SNP could claim that a separated Scotland would rid this country of nuclear weapons but at the same time express their eagerness to scurry under the nuclear umbrella provided by Nato. It has long passed the stage of being an even remotely coherent policy. It matters little that Nato and all our allies will give them the flea in the ear they richly deserve. They can fantasise all day long but it is simply not going to happen. You cannot imagine away reality.

What is evident is that the mass sense of self-awareness and irony removal operations carried out on SNP members has been a resounding success; perhaps the only success they have had in all their years in office.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.