LIKE Brendan Keenan (Letters, September 23) I too was saddened to hear of the demise of Nick Nairn's restaurant. And I was similarly saddened to learn about the closure of Michaelangelo’s restaurant in Clarkston. Glasgow and its suburbs are undoubtedly poorer for their demise.

Small, independent businesses are the economic lifeblood of our towns. More than that: their presence gives meaning to a town centre. They contribute to a feeling of wellbeing and a recognition that the place we live in is a place worthy of making a home. Government has a responsibility to help them thrive. More immediately it is imperative that consumers see through the glossy appeal of chain restaurants and not only drink “homegrown”, as Dougal Sharp has it, but eat homegrown. Hopefully, new independent restaurants can successfully fill the void.

One noticeably curious omission from Mr Keenan’s letter was any mention of the Clarkston restaurant's virtues as a restaurant. There was nothing about everything that matters. Nothing about the warmth of the patron’s welcome. Nothing about the temptations offered by the menu. Nothing about the quality of the ingredients. Nothing about the beautiful presentation of the meals. Nothing about the exceptional service. Nothing about the convivial atmosphere of the place. Nothing about the reasonableness of the prices. These are, quite literally, the bread and butter of all restaurants. It is for all of the above features that I read Ron MacKenna’s restaurant reviews.

Instead, Mr Keenan praises the social work that the restaurant carried out. He details the numerous ways that it strove to be more than a restaurant. The list includes being a food bank and Christmas charity drop-off point, sponsorship of youngsters’ sports, and the charitable offering of free meals to people who were unable to afford to return as customers. No doubt, all very laudable. But Mr Keenan’s letter also reads like an epitaph for the failure of stakeholder capitalism; a case of "never mind the quality, feel the virtue".

Vivek Ramaswamy has written extensively on this political overreach of businesses. Without committing unequivocally to the Friedman doctrine, the once and future presidential candidate has poured scorn on corporations who have embraced the idea that their primary role is to change the world in their image. It should be of concern to all that our public sphere is free from those who can afford to corrupt it.

Businesses pursuing social agendas might seem like good work. It might seem, at a local level, relatively harmless; but when scaled up it becomes corrosive of the public sphere with large businesses and corporations dictating to citizens and government what ideas must be pursued, and where these ideas can be purchased. What at one end looks like well-meaning charity, at the other end, is cynical manipulation.

When I go for a meal, I really just want a great meal. I definitely don’t want a lecture on the restaurant’s social virtues. Restaurants should scrap the faux virtues of stakeholder capitalism and instead concentrate solely on the quality of their steaks.

Graeme Arnott, Stewarton.

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Assisted dying data misleading

I AM writing to express my concern over your article suggesting a split in public opinion over assisted dying ("Public ‘split’ on assisted dying", The Herald, September 21). The article was responding to a recent Scottish Parliament consultation, but a closer examination of the data reveals that this portrayal is misleading.

The article asserted that the consultation had a fairly even response rate between those in favour of changing the law and those against it. However, it failed to explain a critical detail: a significant proportion of those opposing the change were responding from overseas, many with identical copy-and-paste text. There is no way of ascertaining how many of these responses were submitted by bots, and the committee's own reporting on the data notes the influence of "organised campaigns" on the answers received.

To report the details of a survey which shows such clear evidence of distortion, without digging into the reasons for this, skews representation of what the Scottish public genuinely thinks about this sensitive issue. When considering only the responses from within Scotland, the overwhelming majority clearly support assisted dying.

It is crucial that public discourse on this and other important topics is informed by accurate reporting of the facts. If the Scottish Parliament allows itself to be misled by huge influxes of identical responses, this could seriously threaten the democratic principles by which a parliament should operate.

Fraser Sutherland, CEO Humanist Society Scotland, Dunfermline.

Jordanhill not for everyone

JAMES Miller (Letters, September 24) answers his own question, "why are there not more Jordanhills?" when he tells us that "families move into the catchment area". Apart from affluent, professional, middle-class families, how many people does he think can afford to move to Jordanhill? This is the same well-educated socio-economic grouping who can afford to move into the leafier parts of East Renfrewshire, where schools are on a par with Jordanhill as regards academic attainment.

As Nicola Sturgeon discovered, closing the poverty-related attainment gap is less to do with schools and teachers, and everything to do with the socio-economic circumstances which pupils face. The children of relatively affluent, well-educated parents have an enormous advantage; this is perpetuated by concentrations of similar families in Jordanhill and East Renfrewshire et al.

M Carr, Glasgow.

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Problems at the BBC

AS a regular watcher of the travel documentaries presented by Sir Michael Palin on television, I was concerned to learn that he had joined Channel 5 years ago because he had come to the conclusion that the BBC had sought to exercise more control over the presentation of the programmes ("Palin left BBC over its desire to ‘control'", The Herald, September 24). I always felt that one could learn much from Sir Michael’s documentaries about the countries visited and the lifestyles of those living there. His departure was definitely the BBC’s loss. I remain unaware of the BBC’s response to Sir Michael’s comments.

Sir Michael emerges from this disagreement in a more favourable light than the BBC, which has not been short of problems to address this year, including those associated with Strictly Come Dancing and Huw Edwards. Anyway, to adapt a question put earlier in Monty Python's Life of Brian: what has the BBC ever done for us?

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

Sir Michael Palin in Nigeria for a recent programme for Channel 5Sir Michael Palin in Nigeria for a recent programme for Channel 5 (Image: Channel 5)

Stretching a point

THE recent letters of mixed metaphors and the mention of “tether” (Letters, September 23 & 24) remind me of my late father’s oft-posed question: “What stretches further, skin or elastic?”. He would then inform us that it was skin, as confirmed in the Bible when we were told that Moses tethered his ass to a post and proceeded up the mountain.

Thomas Brennan, Glasgow.