Remnants of the Labour left should have the courage to leave

The abused in an ultra-controlling relationship always tell themselves that things will get better, that if they hang on change will come. Except it doesn't. Parties usually get more conservative, more averse to change when in power. This is the most far-right Labour leadership in the post-war period and the one most contemptuous of democratic standards within the party, although there is a lot of competition on that ground. Anas Sarwar has been allowed a little bit of wriggle room in Scotland in relation to Gaza because it is expedient and the Starmer team knows it can completely ignore this at UK level. But there comes a time when the abused have to have the courage to walk out the door.

Isobel Lindsay, Biggar.

Be grateful to Westminster

THERE is a new hate figure at which the Scottish nationalists can vent their spleen. Kemi Badenoch, minister for women and equalities, has proposed that the provisions of the devolution settlement enabling Holyrood to legislate on issues of gender recognition be revoked ("Tories to amend Equality Act to make ‘biological sex’ protected, heraldscotland, June 3).

There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth at the suggestion that any devolved powers be removed. Yet what has Holyrood shown on this issue? That it has a real talent for producing and passing bad legislation. The complicity of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in passing this, even after their ameliorating amendments had been rejected by the SNP/Green coalition, was shocking, and it revealed that their parties' leaders could not reliably explain what a "woman" was and was not. The facilitation of biological males’ access to women’s refuges, prisons and changing rooms, and their participation in 'women’s sports, was little short of grotesque. Thank goodness the Scotland Secretary struck it down.

It pleases the SNP to behave as if Holyrood is a sovereign parliament. It is not. It is a devolved, subaltern assembly. And this issue above all demonstrates why it should stay that way.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.

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We must defend Holyrood

HERE we go again. Kemi Badenoch tells us the Tories - if they win the election - will not only alter the Equality Act to add one word, biological, but will also take away from Holyrood the devolved power that the Scotland Act gave it to pass bills such as the gender recognition one and make it reserved.

This follows the block on the Deposit Return Bill, passed with votes from all parties, which exactly replicates the Tories’ own plan in their last manifesto, promised within the parliament just gone, but never delivered. Will this devolved power also be made reserved? And will they try to make both these powers reserved, without recourse to the Act which gave them to Holyrood?

Perhaps folk have forgotten but I seem to remember that they also blocked Holyrood from signing the UN Charter of Children’s Rights.

I myself have a few misgivings about the GRR bill but will defend to my last breath the powers devolved to Holyrood by an Act which specifically says that Westminster has control only of those powers designated as reserved. I also believe that the Scottish Government should have gone ahead with the DRS, excluding glass bottles meantime.

However frustrated and even disillusioned I may be, I will still vote SNP at the election, as neither of the two parties fighting for control at Westminster can be trusted to protect the powers of Holyrood, while the Tories would love to disband our Scottish Parliament altogether.

L McGregor, Falkirk.

Keep option of private health

IT appears Stephen Flynn and the SNP want to do away with any NHS-private health links of any kind with new legislation ("Flynn: SNP will bring forward Bill protecting NHS from privatisation", heraldscotland, June 3). I shudder at the thought of any SNP measure being adopted at UK level but accept I live in a free democratic society.

Some time ago I was in agony with a painful knee and even with the NHS flat out, the waiting time for the required replacement operation was more than a year. In my desperation I elected to cash in some shares in my former company, given to me as part of an early retirement package, and have the op done privately. The relief was immense and every day since I am grateful for the freedom I had to have done what I did. As a bonus, my action took one off the large NHS waiting list.

Now it seems Stephen Flynn and the SNP want to do away with any kind of NHS-private health sector links, and let those willing and lucky enough to be able to sacrifice life savings to ease their pain continue to suffer.

I am aware Mr Flynn's remarks are merely pre-election froth attempting to attract the extremist fringe and very few take anything the SNP says seriously at any time, and he will be very fortunate indeed if he even has a seat after July 4. What he proposes on health is unworkable but it allows us to see once more the very worst of the SNP in action.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

Different rules apply

IF miraculously given their record in government the Tories win a majority of one seat in the coming General Election it will be considered an incredible victory in spite of their current large overall majority.

If the Labour Party unremarkably wins a majority of one seat in that election without any serious policies to remedy Broken Brexit Britain it will be considered a fantastic victory.

If the SNP wins a majority of one Scottish seat in that election, in spite of the impact of a Westminster-inflicted austerity, Brexit and the cost of living crisis, as well as the Covid pandemic and internal party turmoil, it will be considered a devastating loss.

This was the premise of Sir Trevor Phillips's questioning of the increasingly impressive Stephen Flynn on the Sky Sunday Morning politics programme (June 2). Regrettably Sir Trevor is not alone in seemingly applying different rules in what is supposed to be fair and politically impartial reporting across the UK mainstream media. That said, at least Martin Geissler on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show managed to elicit one frank fact from Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party in Scotland, that in “democratic Britain” there is no democratic path for Ccotland to leave the disingenuously-claimed “Voluntary Union”.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry.

• I HAVE to agree with James Quinn (Letters, June 1) on the fiscal benefits of the current constitutional arrangements in the UK. Without the broad shoulders of the Union Scotland would now be as poor as Norway.

Don Ferguson, Kirkintilloch.

Kemi Badenoch (Image: Stefan Rousseau)

Remember Britoil

IN an increasingly desperate election campaign, as political parties vie with one another to offer voters inducements to make them their choice at the ballot box, the Labour Party has proposed the setting up of a new company, patriotically named GB Energy, that would drive the transition into clean power and ensure the jobs created thereby are in Scotland ("Starmer denies oil and gas plan will lead to job losses", The Herald, June 1).

Whatever emotive adjectives are attached to this project, “new” is the least appropriate. It has more the character of the remake of an old movie. That would be the one entitled “Britoil”, and put into production by Harold Wilson in 1975, located in Scotland and housed in a shiny new office tower in Glasgow’s St Vincent Street. The company ran until 1988, when it was absorbed into BP.

So, a very short life. Scottish voters will surely be justifiably sceptical of what appears to be a “new” movie, with an old and disappointing plot.

Ian Hutcheson, Glasgow.