If only we could recall the whole Government the way we can MPs

Still to come at the end of this month is the Budget, and no doubt we will be hearing that more black holes have been found meaning that promises about no increases in taxation will have to be broken. Anyone with a shred of self-respect would resign his or her position at this point and let the electorate give its opinion but I suppose we are talking about politicians here and they seem to have a very different outlook on life from us lesser mortals.

Alan McGibbon, Paisley.

• ON August 27 Sir Keir Starmer delivered his major “sermon” to the people on how “the project has always been about fixing the foundations of this country” just 57 days after the General Election. It has now become clear that the Labour Party manifesto was itself most certainly not built on strong foundations but perhaps more on shifting sands.

It seems highly likely that (should the briefings be true) the manifesto pledge of scrapping non-dom status will be withdrawn and the pledge to impose VAT on private school fees may at the minimum be delayed. In addition the manifesto contained no proposals to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners but this was delivered it seems without an impact study. Making policy on shifting and inadequate foundations will inevitably lead to subsidence and ultimately a crumbling edifice.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh.

Read more letters

• How can Starmer, Rayner and the rest sleep at night?
• I thought Starmer would be a safe pair of hands. I was wrong

Yet more clunkiness

BARONESS Harriet Harman has claimed that "missteps" and "clunkiness" should be expected by the newish Labour administration. I don't see why. With an unpopular Tory government constantly on the back foot, Sir Keir Starmer knew he was almost certainly going to become Prime Minister, and therefore had plenty of time to think through his plans and policies. The freebies taken not only by him and his wife, but also by his Deputy and Chancellor, cannot be described as a "misstep"; it was blatant greed, and that, on top of leaving pensioners out in the cold, has brought Sir Keir and his motley crew crashing down the opinion polls.

The criticism and controversy surrounding Sue Gray demonstrates yet more "clunkiness", as Ms Gray, fresh from falling on her sword, now takes up the newly-created job of envoy for the nations and regions. But without a doubt that will only be a short-time position; Ms Gray's eventual destination will most probably be to join Baroness Harman on the red benches of the House of Lords, where in company with many other political failures she will be able to claim hundreds of pounds a day, and various other perks, just for turning up.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

Crumbs from the UK table

THE £87 million from the UK Infrastructure Bank for the cable factory in Ayrshire is welcome (“Muted response from Scots ministers over cable factory is no surprise”, The Herald, October 8), but it is a drop in the ocean compared to £22 billion that is promised by Westminster to northern England for two carbon capture hubs while the better-located Peterhead Acorn project gets nothing despite the advantage of existing pipelines to Grangemouth, where the oil refinery that Labour promised to keep open when seeking votes at the General Election is closing.

The Acorn project should have been up and running years ago and rather than giving £600 million in financial backing for Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos project in Belgium the UK Government could have spent this money on upgrading Scotland’s only oil refinery. The Stanlow oil refinery in north-west England is upgrading its infrastructure to expand its business when Grangemouth closes and is part of Hynet, which is getting billions of UK money for carbon capture.

Energy policy is reserved to Westminster, which has benefited from billions in taxation from Scotland’s North Sea while energy-rich Scotland is expected to be grateful for 50 to 100 jobs via GB Energy HQ in Aberdeen.

While Norway invested part of its oil revenues in building wind turbines, and establishing hydrogen electrolyzers, it is shocking that Scotland has none of these industries of the future as Westminster used Scotland’s North Sea bonanza for tax cuts and London infrastructure projects rather than modernising Scotland’s manufacturing and shipping industries.

The Labour Government also pulled the plug on the promised £800 million super computer at Edinburgh University which could have revolutionised artificial intelligence and built on Scotland’s global reputation as a leader in life sciences.

Scotland’s influence as part of the UK is summed up by Labour’s Council of Nations and Regions where we are on an equal footing with 25 English mayors and overseen by an envoy, Sue Gray, as her consolation prize for being the fall girl for Labour’s disastrous first three months in government.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh.

Sue Gray (Image: PA)

Things could have been different

KEVIN McKenna is to be commended on his report of the events at Kelvingrove regarding the anniversary of October 7 ("Why were Glasgow’s Jewish people intimidated when they gathered to mark their saddest day?", The Herald October 7). In particular, it is sad to hear that a counter-demonstration sought to disrupt the proceedings.

I would invite your readers to imagine a different set of events: one where the counter-demonstrators put down their megaphones, flags and banners and silently joined those remembering the victims of Hamas violence. How much more powerful and eloquent a testimony for peace and co-existence in the Middle East that gesture would have been.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.

• IN these upsetting times of international upheaval resulting in horrific violence visited upon innocents, I believe we must recognise the difference between those who adhere to particular religious beliefs and the actions of those who profess to govern in their name.

I condone neither the actions of Hamas nor the disproportionate response of the Israeli government. Likewise, not all Jewish people support Israel's inhumane and indiscriminate destruction of human life. What we need to acknowledge is that the cowardly actions of protesters here in Glasgow and in other cities UK-wide, who are seemingly free to vent their fury without fear of reprisal, are also inflicting deep-seated destruction, this time of the human spirit of many of our fellow-citizens.

John O'Kane, Glasgow.

Britain's broken promises

BRIAN Taylor (“We can, we must, find a solution to conflict in the Middle East”, The Herald, October 5) rightly maintains that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised a home for the Jewish people. However he fails to mention that two years earlier in 1915 Britain had assured the Arab leadership in the “McMahon-Hussein correspondence” of its support for an Arab State which would include Palestine.

And then in 1922 Britain promised the League of Nations that it would prepare Palestine for independence, but instead of doing so in 1948, in a final act of betrayal it abandoned its pledge to protect Palestinian rights and withdrew its forces, leading to 750,000 Palestinians becoming refugees.

Israel was thus built on a foundation of British double-dealing and therefore we in this country carry a historic responsibility to the people of Palestine and indeed to the people of Israel who are never going to know peace as long as Palestinians continue to suffer the unimaginable levels of anguish they have been experiencing ever since 1948.

I have had to oversimplify a complex narrative and so I recommend to your readers the book Policy of Deceit, Britain and Palestine 1914-1939 by Peter Shambrook. Should that involve too much reading I refer them to One on One: Britain, Palestine and a History of Broken Promises, an interview with Dr Shambrook on YouTube which will take up less than an hour of their time.

John Milne, Uddingston.

Israel fighting for us too

IN a very timely reminder Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, has re-iterated the very real threat both Russia and Iran pose on the streets of the UK. Iran, in particular, has been involved in around 20 recent plots. When Israel reacts to the 200 ballistic missiles recently fired at it by Iran perhaps those here might care to reflect on the wider implications for the West and realise Israel is indeed fighting for us too. Denying arms sales to Israel would see the West shooting itself in the foot.

Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.