Why does the SNP keep making so many wrong choices?

Government is about choices, and it is disappointing that the leadership of our country has chosen to abandon yet again many of its citizens by hitting the working man and woman in their pocket. It is within the Government’s devolved powers to at least mitigate against the loss of the winter fuel payment with money being saved by, for example, closing the proto-embassies throughout Europe and in America, certainly not a devolved issue, with the associated jollies, stopping the millions of pounds which are planned to be spent on civil servants who will continue to work on the ongoing independence obsession, reducing the huge bill associated with the many chauffeur-driven ministerial car journeys, and clawing back the increase in the minimum unit price of alcohol from retailers instead of lining their pockets.

Now is the time for the SNP Government to show a bit of real leadership and to stop wasting valuable taxpayers’ money on its ever-increasing pet projects.

Christopher H Jones, Giffnock.

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2026? Yes, bring it on

INTERESTING sentiments in the letter (October 3) from Robert IG Scott, particularly the idea of abolishing Holyrood and letting Westminster sort out all the problems which Mr Scott suggests have been caused by the SNP. I know it is only three months since the change of Government in Westminster, but Mr Scott should surely need no reminder of the 14 years of austerity, the economy being crashed and the cost to the country economically of Brexit, not a record covering Westminster in glory by any stretch of the imagination.

And what about public service provision in England? I am not sure it is faring any better than public services in Scotland, but the huge difference is it comes at a cost in England: for example prescription charges (£9.50 per item) and tuition fees (£9,500 per term). Free bus travel in Scotland is available for under-22s and those over 60, whereas in England free bus travel is only available to over 66.

Three months into the new government at Westminster, guess what, we are still witnessing austerity attacks on the vulnerable, something that does not sit comfortable in a socially just Scotland. To Mr Scott’s suggestion that "2026 can’t come soon enough", I say for Scotland’s sake bring it on and let Scotland send a clear message to Downing Street that our best interests will always be better served with decisions made in Scotland for Scotland.

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk.

An argument for Indyref2

I READ with interest Peter A Russell's proposal with regard to the British standard for a referendum majority being 66% (Letters, October 1). Presumably this means that Mr Russell accepts that the 2014 referendum provided an inconclusive outcome. Therefore, he surely accepts that supporters of independence are within their rights in continuing to pursue a further vote on the matter.

Gordon Evans, Rutherglen.

Let's get down to serious debate

AS far as I can see, assuming the Labour Government recovers from its shambolic three-month honeymoon with a competent, reassuring Budget in a few weeks' time, and it gets real about immigration, energy policy and public service reform, the case for Scottish independence is dead for a generation and all parties can and should settle down to serious debate and policy formulation on how to get the UK back to a common sense, woke-free approach to running the country.

This seems to be the very welcome attitude that the new Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has projected since his appointment, assuming he produces the required vote-winning policies. And if Labour repeats its rout of the SNP in 2026 the Conservatives, LibDems and Reform may well wipe out the SNP, in the 48 (out of 129) Highland, North-east and South regions where Labour is not strong.

However, if Labour continues its underwhelming reign and the SNP vote recovers without an overall majority, Labour's seeming greater hatred of the Tories than the SNP could sucker it into some kind of support for a minority SNP administration.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

The system is rotten

INSTEAD of me and fellow contributors to these pages concentrating on the minutiae of faults at Holyrood, let’s look at the bigger picture on which Scotland’s devolved governance has no effect whatsoever. Scotland is part of the UK which is one of the G7 group. The G7 are supposedly the elite, the most powerful and wealthy nations on Earth. If one however looks at the National Debt of these seven countries one finds their combined debt is of the order of $60 trillion; all these countries with the exception of Germany owe more than their annual GDP.

Other than how they can ever repay that loan it poses other questions, such as to whom the general public of the richest countries in the world owe that astronomical amount of money and where those individuals/institutions got it from when it is almost the equivalent of global GDP.

In the case of the UK one has to ask what Westminster spent the £3 trillion on as it wasn’t the NHS, social services, education, public housing, transport or infrastructure. What did Westminster do with it? Just to whom is it paying £40 billion a year of yours and my hard-earned taxes while simultaneously borrowing £2 billion a month from the same lenders? I wonder if any of those entities receiving the interest payments are registered in the Cayman Islands, for example. Not that I would have the temerity to suggest that a hedge fund based overseas with little contribution to UK tax revenue would donate £4 million to the Labour Party immediately before an election for anything other than altruistic reasons.

The whole system is rotten; society is controlled by and for the rich.

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

Will we ever learn?

I HAVE just finished reading two excellent books: Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard and Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart. Some two and a half thousand years separate the rather different political agendas but they are very much united by a political landscape of subterfuge, lies and double dealing.

Will we ever learn?

Dan Edgar, Rothesay.

Joe Biden, an experienced politician (Image: Getty)

Experience of the wrong kind

ALISON Rowat ("From Keir to Kemi: any chance of a refund or exchange, please?", The Herald, October 2) rightly questions the calibre of our politicians and then goes on to describe the ideal one who would have the drive and tenacity of Margaret Thatcher and Barbara Castle, the wit of Charles Kennedy, the organisational skills of Attlee and the oratorical gifts of Obama. She also mentions "the experience" of a Biden.

It is this "experience", ie a lifetime of being a career politician, which is exactly what's wrong with politicians today. They are vacuous careerists, who have achieved nothing extraordinary in real life. They are supposedly there to "serve'" the rest of us. I dug a little deeper into Joe Biden's past: he deferred the draft five times so did not serve in Vietnam, he was a notoriously poor student, and aside from the well-known plagiarism of a Neil Kinnock speech in the 1980s, the guy had form, he did it in law school too.

He was on the wrong side over apartheid in South Africa until he saw which way was the wind was blowing. Barack Obama supposedly appointed him as his running mate because he had the foreign affairs experience that Mr Obama lacked. Yet I now think it was probably Joe Biden who put the spanner in the works over the Arab Spring which Mr Obama's Cairo speech inspired. Mr Biden has always made much of his Irish heritage but I was pleased to see Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pull no punches on St Patrick's Day at the White House in his swansong where he explained Irish solidarity with Palestine, and that groups in County Mayo made a video in which they disowned the President.

So no, Ms Rowat, I do think we need politicians with experience, but maybe more real-world experience and less of the Westminster/Whitehall/Capitol Hill/Pentagon/Foggy Bottom hinterland.

Marjorie Thompson, Edinburgh.