Why is Labour still pandering to Red Wall Brexiters?

"Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister: 'It was this Government which, just this winter, provided double the winter fuel payment to support pensioners'."

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who this month axed the winter fuel payment, also repeatedly criticised the Conservatives for reducing their support when on the Opposition Front Bench. In 2012 she accused them of "hitting pensioners hard" over a decision not to raise the winter fuel payment for retirees. She often demanded assurances over the future of the benefit and, when Ed Miliband was Labour leader in 2014, advocated only withdrawing it from rich retirees.

The crisis is approaching. Fifty charities have sent her an open letter urging her to rethink. Caroline Abrahams of Age UK says that staying warm and well through the winter is, surely, an objective which deserves to be above the cut and thrust of politics. Age Scotland has pointed out that the Highlands will be 15C colder on average than South-east England. Nine hundred thousand in Scotland will be affected as we have the harsher winter and higher fuel costs. Fifteen per cent live in relative poverty.

Apparently, Gordon Brown is very unhappy at the failure to tackle the two-child payment cap and the winter fuel payment. The Labour media are beginning to question why Chancellor Reeves is sticking to the Conservatives' tight fiscal rules. They stifle the long-term public investment needed in education, health, energy and transport on which economic growth can be built. Why, indeed, are Ms Reeves and Keir Starmer seemingly more intent on appeasing the Red Wall Brexiters rather the public at large? Don't they realise they won the General Election?

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing.

Walking a tightrope

WHO could not have been impressed by the news coming out of Denmark this week that the Danes have set their sights, no expense spared, on counteracting the effects of climate change to reduce the damage it would do without such preventative action?

They take the view that it is much better to be proactive by thinking ahead to preclude the danger of the dreadful damage failure to take action would otherwise bring about.

The voters do not seem to resent the idea that the country should bear the cost now to prevent those problems instead of having to pay the more expensive business of clearing up after climate change has done its worst to property and people.

Compare that perspective with what we can only call a sticking plaster approach to all kinds of awkward problems characterising what the last 14 years of Conservative government employed.

Just look at the catalogue of difficulties it left behind for the newly-elected government. It worked on a reactive principle instead of looking ahead to circumvent and control the clear difficulties staring it in the face.

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The incoming government has declared that it is determined to transform the UK economy by laying stable foundations with the emphasis upon guaranteeing growth to benefit both businesses and public services.

The deficiencies inherited by the Labour Government cannot be remedied overnight. Stamina, patience and self-belief are important ingredients if Labour is to succeed in its economic programme It is now being bombarded with heavy criticism for its removal of the fuel allowance from a large number of pensioners, its failure to reverse the two-child benefit cap and for appearing to cave into union demands. Those criticisms seem to me to come from the hard right and the ultra left.

So the Government is walking a dangerous tightrope in a society which is very much out of control thanks to a relaxed regulatory framework, loopholes in the tax laws and the reckless rantings on digital platforms There is abroad a belief that this Government could end up in the same helpless position as King Cnut in trying to hold back the waves of anarchy which now dominate on our island.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

Focus on troubles at home

NADIA El-Nakla, a Dundee SNP councillor and Humza Yousaf's wife, has recently met with John Swinney to seek reassurances that no further meetings will be held between Scottish Government ministers and Israeli diplomats. This isn't because Ms El-Nakla seeks to adhere to explicit requirements of the Scotland Act for the devolved Holyrood administration to focus only on domestic matters since foreign affairs are wholly retained by Westminster, but rather because she seemingly believes that dialogue of the kind Angus Robertson, Secretary for External Affairs, indulged in is wrong in a time of conflict.

I appreciate that Ms El-Nakla's parents travelled to Gaza last October and sadly became entangled in the terrible conflict there, but that doesn't legitimise Ms El-Nakla's interference nor that of the Holyrood administration.

Meanwhile, Ms El-Nakla's actual day job as a local councillor is as her party's Dundee spokesperson on alcohol and drug deaths in the city. Drug deaths in Dundee regrettably have increased 93% over the last 10 years and again rose last year. Would Ms El-Nakla, as a local councillor, be better focusing on the significant problems in her own backyard and leaving international affairs to sovereign nations with a legitimate role to play in the tragic conflict?

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

Nadia El-Nakla with husband Humza Yousaf (Image: PA)

Professor right to air his views

I AM chary about contributing to Letters Page debates about education as they tend to provide more heat than light. However, I am moved to write regarding this week's responses (Letters, August 18) to Professor Brian Boyd's letter of August 11.

Joe Kerr seems to suggest that Prof Boyd advocates giving young people "the idea that rules are optional" but I can find no place in Prof Boyd's letter which suggests this. John V Lloyd also accuses Prof Boyd of "wading in". (Mr Lloyd also seems to suggest that corporal punishment has some influence on educational attainment, perhaps mistaking correlation with causation.) Prof Boyd is hardly wading in: he has been involved in Scottish education for a number of decades. I do not know what influence your contributors have had on education in Scotland, but Prof Boyd has made a positive contribution to the life and work of schools and to the lives of thousands of pupils and teachers.

As well as his professional contributions to research and educational policy, I personally remember the influence he had as a new head teacher at my own secondary school where he treated pupils with dignity whilst providing both leadership and a positive role model. He influenced me to go into teaching and I remember well his lectures at Jordanhill. (Indeed, at my teacher training interview, he noted that it was nice to see me in his office for a good reason...) Your contributors may not agree with his opinions; I do not agree with absolutely everything he says. However, his work and service over the decades give him every right to express an evidence-based opinion.

Chris Collins, East Kilbride.

Climate fund is madness

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that China remains the world's second-largest economy and that India has become the fifth-largest and has overtaken the UK. So why is the UK Government still giving India and China billions in foreign aid?

At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 countries only agreed to "phase down" the use of coal rather than "phase out" coal. This revolt was led by China and India. In 2009 at COP15 the developed world agreed to give $100 billion (£88bn) a year by 2020 to developing countries to reduce emissions and prepare for climate change. This target was missed but COP26 dangled the prospect of a trillion-dollar-a-year fund from 2025 to compensate for the alleged damage created to the developing world by the developed countries burning fossil fuels. This nasty $1 trillion shock to taxpayers is now only one COP away.

China and India, who are ramping up their consumption of coal and other fossil fuels, would also be recipients of this $1 trillion climate fund. Green madness.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

Rails fares rise a bad move

I REALLY enjoy travelling by train but with the return of the peak ticket price I will be forced back into my car as the increase is totally unacceptable.

The Scottish Government has little chance of meeting any climate control targets now as it is pushing rail travellers back into their cars.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen.

A smug act

WHEN Kevin McKenna describes the Edinburgh Fringe as a “bacchanal of middle-class smugness” (Fringe benefits", August 18) he neglects the bit about it representing a month and a half’s employment for the technical and backstage staff in an industry that was hammered by Covid and continues to stagger from one funding crisis to another. But, then again why let that get in the way of an opportunity to express his own piece of smug, sneering snobbery?

Robin Irvine, Helensburgh.