THE appalling decision of Angus Robertson to refuse an inquiry into the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh Building fire disasters, and ramifications thereof, is a total abrogation of his role as Scotland’s Culture Secretary ("Ministers reject calls for public inquiry into Mack fires", The Herald, June 11).
It greatly undermines the status of Historic Environment Scotland as guardian of Scotland’s hugely important built heritage. The Mackintosh Building is a cultural asset of international importance. A failure to fully recreate and reinstate reveals a shocking lack of vision and belief in a future Scotland where lives can be lived in enriching and fulfilling ways. Scrutiny and accountability are absolutely central to this by way of ensuring that those owners and others responsible for the guardianship of our national inheritance are appropriately motivated to fulfill their wider obligations to the communities within which such cultural assets exist. And from which so many wellbeing and wealth accruing benefits can be derived.
By doing as he has done Mr Robertson has empowered those to whom heritage means nothing. And tacitly given them encouragement to ignore, disregard or circumvent listed building legislation in such way as circumstance dictates. Some of those are powerful organisations such as South Ayrshire Council (SAC) and Network Rail (NR). I am a retired architect and regular railway user who has lived in Ayr town centre for nearly 40 years and who has witnessed, first-hand, the catastrophic loss of the magnificent Victorian railway station and hotel to avoidable (and hugely polluting) fires and unaccountable decision-making. I do not believe that the total destruction (at a cost of £6 million-plus) of this priceless nationally-important, iconic and very beautiful and evocative structure was unavoidable, necessary or desirable. I do believe however that (overly empowered) SAC and (staff cutting/station building-abandoning) NR have priorities and agendas that fail the wider, long-term interests of the communities they purport to serve. This is an utterly unacceptable state of affairs but now one that has been revealed to be (to all intents and purposes) acceptable to the Scottish Government itself.
Everyone who has any regard for the ongoing importance of Scotland’s heritage-rich built environment should support the SAVE Britain's Heritage petition currently running online. This is ostensibly by way of ensuring that important public safety powers (as applicable in Scotland) cannot be cynically misused or misapplied.
Signing this petition is a simple action all citizens can take that shall additionally empower HES and, most importantly, enable it to fully undertake its core function as guardian of Scotland’s wonderful built heritage.
A Stewart, Ayr.
READ MORE: Why is the right to free assembly to be denied only to Catholics?
READ MORE: How can restoring the Mack matter when children are going hungry?
Degrees of common sense
NEIL Mackay ("Why today's youth embrace extremism", The Herald, June 13) is correct to warn us against the extremist groups winning support among our gullible youth (which incidentally should encourage him to advocate raising the voting age back to adults of 21), but unfair to say our "politicians couldn't care less" about our young people: though clearly our secondary school and university education in 20th century history needs upgrading.
However, it would also be useful to know if his friend's son, who cannot get "the sort of job he went to university for" and "which matched his talents", despite his degree and despite our high employment rates, had studied a subject of some use to our economy, and not a "hobby-type" degree or what are often derided with some justification as mickey-mouse degrees.
It would also help to know what jobs, their locations and how many he has applied for.
This is not just taking a utilitarian view of further education but is surely common sense in our present reality: post-credit crunch and post-Covid lockdown recoveries, exacerbated by the ongoing and malign effects of Putin's aggression and other global threats.
John Birkett, St Andrews.
• MY feelings about political parties is that you vote for the one that you think will do you the least harm, always assuming that you haven’t been turned off by all the fairytales being told by the politicians. However I would be prepared to consider voting for a party that promised to do something about today’s education system including the reintroduction of specialised schools for individuals who disrupt mainstream schools and adversely affect the education, and therefore future prospects, of children who want to learn.
Valuable teaching resources that are currently used in schools to watch over and pander to unteachable children, more often than not on a one-to-one basis, could then spend their time teaching those who want to learn. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that the present system isn’t working and needs to be discarded.
Alan McGibbon, Paisley.
Bullies in prayer
IT was inevitable that the vote to set up buffer zones round clinics providing abortions should be met with over-the-top outrage by a small, but vocal, section of society. Christopher McLaughlin (Letters, June 14) writes that the move will “criminalise free assembly and public prayer for a couple of dozen pro-life grandmothers”. The tiny buffer zones will take up a miniscule percentage of Scotland’s land area. Grandmothers, and anyone else wanting to pray in public, will have the rest of Scotland to pray in.
I have always understood that those who choose to believe in the Christian God also believe their God to be omnipresent. This surely means that there is no need for the pro-life grandmothers and other anti-abortion campaigners to travel to the buffer zones to pray. They can pray where their demonstration will not intimidate or upset a clinic’s staff and patients. That they want to pray in the buffer zones can only mean that they are not bothered that their actions could, or rather would, cause distress.
As a schoolboy I was made to learn by heart the Beatitudes. I must have been taught an abridged version as, while I remember “blessed are the meek”, I have no memory of “blessed are the bullies”.
Alistair Easton, Edinburgh.
McCoist and the defence
IN his critique of football match commentaries David Miller (Letters, June 14) is perhaps a tad harsh on the repetitive utterances of Ally McCoist. Compared to the often-indistinct offerings by other fellow pundits Ally provides an infectious levity. Former star players rarely graduate to top-class competent communicators.
Should we be rid of such superfluous superlatives as "unbelievable" " incredible " and " out of this world " which beset match and post-match interviews? Absolutely.
Allan C Steele, Giffnock.
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