Labour right up there with the Tories on heartlessness

So now we know. Neither Anas Sarwar nor Jackie Baillie nor anybody else in so-called “Scottish” Labour has the power to encourage Sir Keir Starmer to do anything.

Particularly outrageous is the behaviour of those Labour MPs who, after voting to retain the two-child cap, challenged the Scottish Government to mitigate its effect (as it already mitigates the effect of the bedroom tax).

The Scottish Child Payment already benefits more than 300,000 children. But the Scottish Government has a finite budget. To mitigate the two-child cap it would have to impose yet more cuts on other departments. Which Peter should they rob in order to pay Paul? The NHS? Housing? Cleansing? The police? In recent months it has come under attack whenever it tries to shuffle money amongst these departments.

The UK Government, like most independent countries, routinely borrows and prints money. Whenever it wants to spend money on a war or a jewel-encrusted royal event, the cash is there. For it, the retention of the two-child cap is a matter of choice, not affordability. It is in competition with the Tories to display heartlessness.

Mary McCabe, Glasgow.

SNP should look in the mirror

I MUST admit to having had a little chuckle to myself when I read Ruth Marr’s letter (July 26) in respect of the Labour Party’s removal of the whip from the seven MPs who backed the SNP’s proposed amendment in respect of the two-child benefit cap. The sheer “forgetfulness” of SNP supporters never ceases to amaze me when they wax lyrical about the behaviour of another political party and completely ignore the many well-documented and, in reality, much more sinister, failings of their own party.

Perhaps Ms Marr should have a chat with Joanna Cherry and those others who were bullied and ostracised by those in their party, from top to bottom, before criticising others. A case of “the pot calling the kettle black”.

Bob Hamilton, Strathaven.

READ MORE: Today's well-off pensioners threaten futures of those still in work

READ MORE: Digital telephone landline switch could be disastrous for some

Hypocrisy on oil exploration

THE utter hypocrisy of the SNP is astonishing but not surprising. SNP MP Dave Doogan was on Radio Scotland this morning (July 25) criticising Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to offer no new oil exploration licences, lauding SNP support for the sector.

We all remember Nicola Sturgeon grandstanding, declaring, to satisfy her Green masters, that there should be no new oil exploration, condemning workers, families and businesses to the dustbin. Well, surprise, surprise, Mr Doogan has done a complete u-turn, opposing and criticising Labour Party policy in an effort to draw favour to his party which is in big trouble.

The SNP u-turn was essential for Stephen Flynn’s Aberdeen success and no doubt he had a word in John Swinney’s ear to change policy. The hypocrisy of this party is appalling.

Douglas Cowe, Newmachar.

Pensions: devil is in the detail

STATE pension comparisons with those in other countries (Letters, July 24 & 26) can be misleading if they do not cover every relevant detail including employee and employer contributions plus other benefits in retirement such as travel concessions, TV licence until recently, etc.

Other countries impose their social security taxes on pensioners and/or oblige them to decide each year what treatments and expenses they will cover by their medical insurance premiums, where any uncovered expenses such as ambulance transport, quite apart from the medical treatments themselves, can turn out very expensive.

Many in the UK with generous final-salary pensions (now almost entirely within the public sector) may well find their net disposable incomes to be little different from the levels enjoyed in their final working years, due to no longer being subject to higher tax bands, National Insurance, work-based pension contributions, commuting costs paid from their taxed earnings, or (for the luckier cases) ongoing mortgage repayments.

For those working from home (which I accept can in some positions be equally or more efficient) which is slightly more prevalent in the public sector, I do wonder how many have had their salaries adjusted to allow for their commuter cost savings, quite apart from the benefit of increased leisure hours weekly.

John Birkett, St Andrews.

• ALAN Ritchie (Letters, July 26) accused me of “spouting rubbish”.

I said (Letters, July 24) that the UK state pension is one of the lowest in Western Europe.

I said that my house does not provide me with an income and that my income is unconnected to the value of my house.

These are facts, not nonsense.

David Clark, Tarbolton.

Opposing the right to strike

THOSE of us who oppose the right of workers to strike in vital public services are the true defenders of those services. It is us who want to give peace of mind to those on the receiving end of these services. It is us who want to bring to an end the right of militant trade unionists to make the lives of the poor even more difficult than it already is. It is us who truly recognise the vitality of these services.

It is not us who take a malevolent pleasure in bringing these vital services to a halt on what seems now to be a regular basis. It is not us who refuse to provide the service that the taxpayer has paid to provide. It is not us who use the very vulnerability of the poor to achieve our aims. It is us who recognise that if a service is indeed vital, then it should not be subject to left-wing agitation.

None of the above, in any way, suggests that public service workers do not deserve a good and sustainable wage. I think they deserve far more than they currently get. The argument against the right to strike is solely about ensuring a continuity of service. That is possible. Militant trade unionists have been defeated before, and they can be again. All it takes is some Maggie-like guts. The question is whether any of the potential leadership candidates of the Conservative Party, north and south of the Border, possess such a characteristic.

Graeme Arnott, Stewarton.

Should we end the right to strike in vital public services? (Image: Newsquest)

Care cuts are disgraceful

IF “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members,” what does the Accounts Commission’s report that the growth in funding gap in health and social care has risen by 187% in the last year, say about Scotland ("Scots health and social care bodies funding gaps ‘widening’", The Herald, July 25)?

It’s a very bleak picture indeed for those affected. My disabled son, now 18, has borne the brunt of these cuts all his young life. His lack of awareness at least shields him from the clear message from our authorities and politicians that he is a financial burden of decreasing importance.

My wife and I are two of the estimated 800,000 unpaid carers in Scotland.

Lack of support, respect and status are the norm for us as we go about our never-ending care tasks. Like so many carers, paid and unpaid, we attempt to offer a decent, loving and stable response to our precious son’s needs. With each new deficit in support and injustice we encounter, our strength and resolve weaken.

Despite rhetoric from authorities and politicians the simple fact is that we demean our society by the disgraceful human stories behind these continuing cuts.

Duncan F MacGillivray, Dunoon.

Digital bugbear

RECENTLY (July 15) you published my letter about some of the issues arising out of the switch over to digital landlines. I see from your lead article today ("Labour ‘betraying’ rural Scots over digital phones support", The Herald, July 26) that a particular concern of Consumer Scotland is that the new digital landlines will only work in a power cut if there is a battery backup". Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case.

We have been on full fibre internet for some years now. When our copper line was disconnected I raised the point with BT about loss of our phone service during a power cut. I was sent a battery backup pack. The hub was then powered through the pack which would cut in in the event of a loss of electricity. Not long afterwards we did have a planned power cut when Scottish Power was working on the supply in our area. The battery did power the hub, but not the modem and without the modem we had no internet and no digital landline. I have raised this repeatedly with BT and have been informed that the backup battery can only power the hub.

Until there is a battery backup for the modem as well as the hub the problem of connectivity in rural areas with poor or no mobile phone service will remain.

Dr John Lochrie, Maybole.

Let's lose the miles

IN an unusual occurrence, I found myself buying meat in a traditional butcher’s shop today and noticed that it was weighed out in kilograms. When I fill up my car with petrol the quantity of fuel is measured in litres. We buy lengths of material, cable and so on measured in metres and we will happily watch the Olympics as athletes run events such as the 100 metres and the 1500 metres.

Society seems to have adjusted readily from the days of pounds and ounces, gallons and pints and yards, feet and inches. The metric system is much more comprehensible than the imperial system it has replaced. (For example, how many people remember that there are 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, 10 chains in a furlong and eight furlongs in a mile?) So why does the United Kingdom persist with using miles to show distances on road signs?

One encouragement to change is that, from my experience of driving in countries that use kilometres, journeys seem shorter. Yes a journey of 250 miles becomes one of 400 kilometres but, on a good road, it takes only an hour to cover 100 kilometres and there is something very satisfying about seeing the distance to your destination dropping so quickly.

George Rennie, Inverness.