JIM McAdam (Letters, May 28) writes that “the strength of the RAF has dropped from 93,300 when the Conservatives came to power to a current level of about 36,000.” He’s not even close. In 2010, when the Tory-LibDem coalition took office, there were 43,000 RAF regular personnel; in 2015, when the Conservatives governed on their own, there were 34,000. Now there are 32,000.

Part of the reason for the drop in RAF numbers may be because Tony Blair’s Labour government decided they would operate a significant portion of the UK’s fast jet fleet from two unreliable, vulnerable, eye-wateringly expensive aircraft carriers, Royal Navy assets. Something about having the capability to “project power” overseas, aka gunboat diplomacy; as the song goes, those days are past now, at least for the UK.

Mind you, if the UK wants to make use of its aircraft carriers, I know of the perfect mission for them. It’s in the Eastern Mediterranean and would involve establishing a no-fly zone over Gaza. It’s well past time something was done to stop Israel from dropping tonnes of bombs daily on the heads of Palestinian women and children, with the inevitable catastrophic toll of dead and maimed.

I know that isn’t going to happen. The key leaders in the West, notably Joe Biden, have condoned Israel’s genocide in Gaza and are thereby complicit. Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer have also exposed their moral vacuity and I’m glad that some of our own Scottish politicians, notably Humza Yousaf and Stephen Flynn, have spoken up forcefully for the innocent victims in Gaza.

As is clear from recent votes at the UN, most of the world has had enough of Israel’s repeated breaches of international and humanitarian law. Only the US and its acolytes persist in standing by Benjamin Netanyahu’s blood-soaked regime. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping surely can’t believe their luck. The world order we’ve known for decades is cracking and, if Donald Trump gets back to the White House, I can see America returning to isolationism. Who is the UK going to snuggle up to then?

Doug Maughan (ex-RAF), Dunblane

Scuppered by short-sightedness

SINCE 2007, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has been funding the delivery of the Elementary Food Hygiene Course (certificated by the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland) in Scotland's secondary schools.

As a result, over 200,000 scholars have attained this qualification in skills and knowledge that is nationally and industry recognised.

As well as being essential for anyone who intends to work in the food industry, the qualification also helps schools meet the SQA Curriculum for Excellence, Health and Wellbeing. Holders of the certificate who go into the food industry can then use it to advance towards further qualifications.

FSS has now announced that due to “financial constraints in its budget”, it is no longer able to support this project.

So (not for the first time) we have a very successful scheme scuppered by short-sightedness.

At a time when Scotland is trying to expand the tourism industry, surely some of the funds for other, less successful projects could be diverted?

John F Crawford, Whittingham, Preston

Timely contribution to debate on care

Alzheimer Scotland’s report is a timely contribution to the ever more urgent debate about how Scotland can make sure its citizens who need care are able to access what they need, when they need it, as close to home as possible (“Advanced dementia care charges 'unfair' says charity”, The Herald, May 27)

Many people needing the long-term care which is the focus of the report will have palliative care needs, but these needs are too often not recognised or met. Marie Curie research has shown that by 2040, nearly two-thirds of all Scottish deaths will take place in care homes, people’s own homes or hospices, meaning a significant increase in demand for social care and community-based palliative care services for terminally ill people with complex needs.

We endorse the report’s recommendations, in particular the need to take a rights-based approach to designing and delivering the structures and systems of care in Scotland. This is the crux of Marie Curie’s campaign for a Right to Palliative Care in Scotland and this report is a welcome addition to the evidence driving that campaign.

Amy Dalrymple, associate director of policy, Marie Curie Scotland, Edinburgh

Tricky question of boats as ‘she’

ROBIN Johnston (May 27) writes that, at the launch of job “534” at John Brown’s, he was told that ships were called “she” because” they were usually good looking but could be difficult to handle.” I dare not comment on the second reason but job “534”, or the Queen Mary as she became, was indeed beautiful as were a great many ships built in the middle years of the last century.

Sadly this is no longer the case; most ships built this century are functional (as they should be) but are not things of beauty. The current Cunard “Queens” are sadly just some of many spectacular examples of the decline in the aesthetic standards of ship design over that last 50 years.

So perhaps modern ships do not deserve to be referred to as “she”? Does the, presumably deliberate, loss of feminine beauty in ships mean that naval architecture has been sucked into the whirlpool of gender uncertainty and fluidity? And why have the Scottish Greens been silent on this important development?

Alistair Easton, Edinburgh

A high price to pay

FURTHER to Robin Johnston’s letter (May 27) my husband Kevin bravely quips that “Yes, ships should always be referred to as ‘She’ and in female gender, because apart from being good-looking and difficult to handle, they are always expensively over budget and late.”

Linda FitzGerald, Killin.