I HAVE been watching with interest Glasgow City Council’s plans to revamp George Square. So far I see no mention of several statues of men who no doubt divided opinion, even in their own times.

I refer to the two military men given pride of place at the head of the square facing onto the City Chambers. Both Sir John Moore and Colin Campbell found fame as military men, putting down slave revolts in the West Indies, when enslaved people were demanding more humane conditions. Many in Glasgow at that time signed petitions and organised meetings in favour of better conditions for the enslaved. These two memorials were no doubt put up and given pride of place in the square, by Glasgow’s grateful slave merchants.

Both James Watt and William Gladstone are also there. They both inherited wealth from their families who were slave merchants in Liverpool but at least have other claims to fame. James Oswald on the south side of the square, inherited his family’s fortune from the slave fort on Bunce Island in modern day Sierra Leone and used it to establish a merchant bank which gave loans to the American cotton business, for the purchase of slaves.

In 1832 when men in Scotland won the vote, they rejoiced in clearing out almost all of those members of the Westminster Parliament who had defended slavery, adding vital support to the vote which abolished it. A grateful William Wilberforce said they would never have managed it without the devoted work of Zachary Macauley, son of the manse from Inveraray, who has a memorial in Westminster Abbey in London but is long forgotten in Glasgow.

Isn’t it time we revisited the reputations of those preserved in the square and gave our young people some more deserving men and women to look up to?

Kate Phillips, Author Bought & Sold, Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery, Glasgow.

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Raise the UK alcohol duty

IN London you can buy a litre bottle of a supermarket own-brand Scotch for £17.90 and a 10-pack of Carlsberg Pilsner lager for £7.50. Due to Scottish minimum pricing legislation, in an Edinburgh branch of the same supermarket you will pay £26 for the whisky and £9.73 for the lager, a difference of £10.33.

That difference is not a tax. It is an extra profit for the supermarket.

On Wednesday Chancellor Rachel Reeves will present her Autumn Budget to the House of Commons. She could raise the duty on alcohol throughout the UK to a level equivalent to the new Scottish minimum price. If that increase was ring-fenced for NHS spending it would make a huge difference.

It would also end the frustration of knowing that in Scotland we are paying much higher prices for our national drink than our cousins south of the Border. It might also alleviate traffic congestion on roads between Scotland and England which will soon have convoys of white vans doing pre-Hogmanay cross border booze cruises.

Of course, Labour could always make a commitment to scrap minimum pricing if it gains a majority in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.

John F Robins, Cardross.

Good luck with vaping ban

THE intention to ban single-use vapes from June ("Scotland pushes back ban on single-use vapes to match UK legislation", The Herald, October 25) next year is excellent but fraught with difficulties, as our Australian attempt can show.

As a background, cigarettes here are massively taxed and cost about $1 (50p) per single cigarette so there are illegal cigarettes imported, leading to a tobacco war between rival gangs and over 100 stores being firebombed. Vapes have become the alternative but led to children becoming addicted to the flavoured varieties.

Now the only legal vape suppliers are chemists, most of whom refuse to sell them and so an illegal market exists there too.

Be prepared for anger from smokers and massive profits for illegal suppliers.

What is the real solution? Common sense, medical advice, lots of photos of cancerous lungs, high taxes, social pressure; and yet none of these have worked so far.

Good luck with putting out these fires.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia.

Boost grants for apprenticeships

WITH self-employed electricians and plumbers able to charge £500-plus per day driven by a shortage of skilled people, is it not time the Government reallocated funding from poor value university courses to apprenticeship grants?

Robert Gemmell, Port Glasgow.

Strange comings and goings

REGARDING recent correspondence (Letters October 16, 18, 21, 22 & 24), train announcements used to be intriguing on the Ayr -Glasgow line. After leaving, say, Troon, a (recorded?) voice says: "Thank you for travelling with Sco'Rail. The next station shall be Troon ." Well, Biblical or what?

Do not fash yourself worrying about the true whereabouts of Troon, just resign yourself to the voice saying, as you leave Barassie that the next station (which used to be called Irvine) "shall be Barassie", a revelation which thou shalt quietly embrace.

Thou needest not give a tinker's cuss about the location of anything, especially if thou art going all the way to Glasgow anyway. Verily I say unto you that it is better that you accept the miracle that you can leave Barassie and yet arrive at Barassie without at any point going backwards, than it is to lose your own mind. And it's a lot more fun.

Donald M Manson, Prestwick.

Is coffee too complicated these days?Is coffee too complicated these days? (Image: PA)

Bring back bog standard coffee

ANENT the recent letters about sandwiches (October 24 & 25): why is it now impossible to get a decent cup of coffee at a restaurant, airport, railway station, motorway services, cafe and the like without having to go through a menu incomprehensible to the average human being? Why can't I have just an ordinary cup of filter coffee without having to queue behind others as the barista faffs and faffs about and the queue gets longer and the food on your plate gets colder?

Bring back bog standard, but good, coffee.

Steve Barnet, Gargunnock.