How can we have a social contract when everything is broken?

The crisis in our universities is rooted in a fundamentally flawed funding model, where the Scottish Government pays only a fraction of the true cost of educating a student. To make up the shortfall, universities have become overly reliant on international students, whose higher fees are used to cover financial gaps. While international students bring cultural diversity and global perspectives, this over-reliance exacerbates the situation, creating an unsustainable funding structure.

The policy of free tuition for Scottish students, although admirable in principle, is no longer sustainable under these conditions. A different funding model is urgently needed, one that ensures universities are adequately resourced without compromising the quality of education. This might involve fairer funding distribution, including contributions from those who can afford to pay, to safeguard the future of higher education in Scotland.

To trumpet the idea of a "social contract" while these vital services crumble under neglect and underfunding is not just misleading, it is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Scotland. A genuine social contract would involve government investment in these services to ensure they are fit for purpose. Instead, we see evasion, blame-shifting, and little accountability for evident failures. John Swinney and his colleagues must stop hiding behind comforting rhetoric and face the reality: Scotland’s public services are failing to meet the needs of its citizens. If this government is truly committed to the idea of a social contract, then it must do more than offer empty platitudes. It must take immediate, meaningful action to restore and enhance the quality of our public services. This means proper efficiency and reform, not just more lazy tax rises. We all depend on services, so everyone needs to shoulder some burden.

Until then, the talk of a social contract remains nothing more than a myth: a convenient slogan that does not reflect the lived experiences of the Scottish people. We deserve more than just words; we deserve action and results. It is time for our leaders to live up to their promises or admit that they have failed to do so.

Simon Jones, Bishopbriggs.

Read more letters

• Five decades of incompetence: No wonder the UK is dying on its feet
• The politics of pretence

THE SNP conference could not be honest about the reality of the last decade of its politics of pretence.

In the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum, the SNP presented a prospectus to the people of Scotland based largely on wishful thinking. Unsurprisingly the majority were unconvinced.

In the intervening years the SNP Government has blamed others for everything that has gone wrong whilst holding out independence as the answer to all our problems. This has culminated in the recent General Election in which the SNP suffered the consequences of too many broken promises, and so often prioritising an imagined future independence over the current realities for the people of Scotland. Meanwhile, across all the essentials we depend on the Scottish Government for, we have seen decline and failings, from education to health, from drug deaths to ferries, from missed environmental targets to levels of homelessness.

In his conference speech John Swinney was at it again, as he committed to ensuring we all come to "understand" that independence is “urgent and essential” (“FM Swinney vows to make SNP winners again despite looming cuts”, The Herald, September 2). He also sought to demonise the new Labour UK Government, wanting to ensure there is someone else to deflect all his Government’s problems on to.

John Swinney is First Minister because the next generation of SNP leadership contenders prefer the old guard to take the brunt of electorate disenchantment with the SNP. They want to pick up the pieces afterwards, with Scotland meanwhile having to suffer all the consequences of continued SNP incompetence and misjudgements.

Keith Howell, West Linton.

Proof we depend on the UK

JOHN Swinney and Shona Robison tell us that the SNP regime will not in future be able to pay pensioners the winter heating allowance that they have received from government for many years. This is because the new Labour Government has discontinued the payment for most pensioners in England. There will therefore not be the usual associated Barnett consequential funds coming to Scotland to pay for our pensioners’ allowance.

This is, of course, just the next standard SNP gripe about Westminster. But there is more to it. Is it not strange that SNP leaders should claim that Scotland is unable to make this payment if it is not funded by HM Treasury? These are the same people who tell us how wealthy Scotland is, with all its resources, and how prosperous Scotland would be if it left the UK and had to pay for everything itself.

This episode furnishes proof, if any were needed, that Scotland depends on the rest of the UK to pay for the nice little extras of which Scots are so fond. Let us hear no more about Scotland being better off outside the UK. It simply isn’t true.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.

Voting was pointless

IF the response by some of your columnists and contributors to Westminster’s decision to continue the previous regime's austerity policies wasn’t so serious it would be pathetic and risible.

What did they expect to happen, a change of direction? Did nobody notice the very public evisceration of the already-centrist Labour Party as all shreds of socialism were torn from its innards on the excuse of antisemitism, this despite the Labour Party’s own internal investigation into antisemitism within the party having found the accusations substantially baseless and lacking factual evidence? Did nobody notice that the people in the red hats have become exactly the same as those in the blue hats?

The phrase “If voting made a difference they wouldn’t let us do it” is often attributed to Mark Twain but it has never been more relevant than it is today. What if many of the 40% of the electorate who didn’t vote in the last General Election acted not through ignorance and apathy but through the realisation that the exercise was pointless? The simple fact that I could vote SNP meant that I used my vote; had a puppet with a red rosette and one with a blue rosette been the only candidates I would not have got out of bed.

It begs the question of what will happen if after another decade or so of Westminster pursuing Establishment-endorsed policies which penalise the majority and increase the wealth of the few, even less of the electorate decide to vote in the next pointless General Election. How can you possibly pretend we have a democracy if the next time only significantly less than 60% of the electorate cast their votes?

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

• THE pseudo socialists Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Co acted with alacrity to cancel the universal winter fuel allowance.

It is noted that they have done nothing to change the brief or make-up of Ofgem to change it from being the driving force of the energy cartel which has condemned the populace of a country rich in sources of energy to high energy costs.

Andy McAdam, Ayr.

Doom and gloom: Rachel Reeves (Image: PA)

Please, give us some hope

THERE has been much talk in recent weeks, both in The Herald and other sections of the media, about the Labour Government downplaying a quick recovery due to the legacy left by the previous Tory administration.

I’m sure these warnings are sincere but I recall Rachel Reeves speaking at the memorial service to the last Labour Chancellor, Alistair Darling, in December last year. In her memories of Mr Darling, she recalled him advising her that any government must offer the electorate hope for the future. She used that specific word.

A little more of that would not go amiss as I’m sure that is a large part of the reason Labour was elected; the electorate was disillusioned with the thoroughly discredited Tory government and Labour offered change and implicitly hope. The current tone has the danger of talking the country down, and with it, its people.

Willie Towers, Alford.