What are we pensioners supposed to have done wrong?

Granted this group of pensioners are better-off than some but there are many at the top of the social pyramid much better-off than we are. The majority of them have their wealth by virtue of an accident of birth and inherited wealth rather than from spending a life working all the hours God can give. Their income and increasing wealth is derived ultimately from the endeavours of others including those pensioners who currently live in poverty and it is protected by a series of rules and regulations drawn up by themselves, the Establishment.

Many of our elected politicians who have made and perpetuate the decisions that determine the distribution of wealth in society are relatively well off. When successive Chancellors of the Exchequer are reputed to be multimillionaires perhaps that’s where the real problem lies. Why blame OAPs who have done nothing wrong?

Some pensioners may not need a winter heating allowance but then again does an MP with two children representing a constituency outwith London really need an allowance up to a maximum of £330,245 on top of their salary?

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

• ALAN Ritchie (Letters, August 2) is correct. If anything exemplifies how ludicrously generous and unsustainable many of our public “service” defined benefit pensions are, it is Huw Edwards’ “entitlement” to his BBC pension of £300,000 per annum.

It has also been reported, by former Bank of England economist Neil Record, that our public sector’s accrued pension liabilities, largely unfunded and therefore payable by future taxpayers (aka our children and grandchildren) now total £4.9 trillion, almost double the official national debt of £2.7 trillion.

NHS pensions alone cost taxpayers the equivalent of 82% of salaries, more than six times the contributions of even the highest-earning NHS staff, and ignored by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her public comments on the 22% salary increase she has just agreed. Teachers’ and civil servants’ pension schemes cost us only slightly less.

It is long overdue for all public sector defined benefit schemes to be terminated, with their accrued benefits crystallised and honoured, and substituted by defined contribution schemes, just as the private sector realised 30 years ago and has almost universally implemented ever since.

John Birkett, St Andrews.

Huw Edwards has a BBC pension of £300,000 a year (Image: PA)

When relativity does not apply

ALL things are relative. Albert Einstein understood general relativity and the theory of gravitation as applied over four dimensions. One way to understand this would be for us laymen to exist in the normal three dimensions, while politicians exist in the fourth. This allows them to claim substantial sums of taxpayers' money for their dependent children, and are not limited to two.

Unlike indigent pensioners, politicians have no limit on the cost of personal energy usage, and housing, meals and travel is heavily subsidised.

Some Scottish politicians can agree (Schrodinger logic) with Westminster cuts to funding while insisting the Scottish Government can make up any budgetary shortfall because it "has the powers”. I await with anticipation the call for a Scottish space programme from Anas Sarwar or Christine Jardine or Miles Briggs. But this “relativity” does not apparently apply to housing, ferry services, education or health, where Scotland is reportedly (BBC et al) singularly disadvantaged among the nations of these islands, or indeed the world.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

Carry on regardless

LABOUR Chancellor Rachel Reeves should not concern herself with financial black holes or deficits, as for some time governments have been creating money, as required, from thin air.

Her own party previously came to office in May 1997, when our national debt was £350 billion. It left, after 13 years of happy spending, with it at some £900bn.

Today, it is £2,800bn, and not a word said. To just carry on regardless would surely be easier, and continue to go unnoticed?

Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.

National Park must be opposed

THE Scottish Government favours the creation of a new National Park in Galloway ("Galloway named as preferred site of new Scots national park", The Herald, July 23). It has instructed Naturescot to manage a consultation.

I am a farmer and forester in Galloway, and I am opposed to this new designation for the following reasons:

• Planning: Galloway is a highly productive agricultural forestry area and there are concerns that a new Galloway National Park will increase bureaucracy and stifle innovation.

• Suitability: Galloway is not a natural landscape, but has been created by the actions of farmers, foresters and land managers over centuries. There is no case for preserving the existing landscape as it is. It is an evolving and working landscape, that will develop over time.

• Access: Increased access-related issues (livestock worrying, anti-social behaviour, littering) will cause more practical, emotional and financial stress for our food producers.

• Transport: In Dumfries and Galloway, extremely limited public transport is not fit for the existing local population and would not support increased visitor numbers. The existing road infrastructure based on the A75 and the A77 would not sustain the increase in visitor numbers alongside existing Euro route freight, agricultural and rural business traffic.

• Housing: Increased visitor numbers could price out the local population. There is already a lack of affordable rural housing for young people in the Dumfries and Galloway area. In addition, farm and rural businesses across the proposed area struggle to secure labour currently and the reduction in available housing is a further threat.

• Regulation: Farmers and land managers will be working with the new Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, the Biodiversity Strategy, and a whole range of new legislation on housing and net zero. A new National Park designation will add a further layer of bureaucracy.

• Rural economy: Prioritising tourism and visitor access over farming and forestry businesses in Galloway will be to the detriment of the rural economy and the natural environment.

• Cost: A new Galloway National Park will be expensive to administer and put added strain on the taxpayer. UK taxation is already at a record level and the country cannot afford this new and additional commitment.

• Existing National Parks: There is widespread dissatisfaction amongst residents and businesses located in the existing National Parks.The operation of these parks should be independently reviewed before any new National Park is created.

• Democracy: The Galloway National Park Association is a small pressure group and does not have a democratic mandate to promote a National Park in Galloway. There should be a referendum of all residents.

I hope that people living and working in Galloway will respond to the consultation and that the Scottish Government will scrap this proposal.

Robert Gladstone, Thornhill.

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

READ MORE: Reeves is crying wolf to justify the tax rises to come

Let's vote on death penalty

CATHY Baird (Letters, August 2) appears to be against the death penalty essentially because she considers that a sufficient justification to prevent its reinstatement is that it is morally repugnant. Presumably therefore she holds the same opinion of murder, as the murderer has applied the death penalty to his or her victim. This begs the question: does she apply the same weight of sufficiency to her moral repugnance of murder as she applies to her moral repugnance of the death penalty for murder, or does she consider one less repugnant than the other, and if so, why?

As to evidence on whether or not the death penalty is a deterrent, that can only be a personal subjective view, and to me it would be. The way to gauge public opinion would be by a referendum. Particularly in view of recent events, I believe there is more than sufficient justification for that, the prospect of which could at least quell the growing public protests.

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

• ONE simple way to dissuade young people from carrying knives would be to reintroduce corporal punishment for anyone caught with one.

The former police museum in Pitt Street, Glasgow, included a birching board to which offenders were attached whilst being birched. A book recorded the names of all those who has been punished. No name ever appeared twice.

John Burn, Hamilton.