Does anyone believe Starmer will grow a spine like Macron has?

The Herald Scotland

26-07-2025

Doug Maughan, Dunblane.
In the name of God, go
There have been many disturbing and distressing scenes in Gaza showing the effects of the profound upheaval on the people endeavouring to eke out an existence there. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by these scenes, particularly those involving women and children. A scene which particularly moved me recently was of a young mother, ill in bed in hospital, saying goodbye to her young daughter, who had already been made ready for her funeral.
I am reminded of the words of Oliver Cromwell to the Rump Parliament and later used by Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain: "In the name of God go." Today I would direct these words to all those responsible for the inhumanity and cruelty being inflicted upon the ill-used people of Gaza.
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.
• Just last week, we heard about the gargantuan efforts of mostly working-class musicians, led by the incredibly tenacious Bob Geldof to help people, thousands of miles away, who were starving.
All it took was a broadcast by Michael Buerk to make Bob spring into action. With the undoubted help of Midge Ure, they saved thousands of lives. We found out recently that even the normally hard-hearted Tory government contributed.
Today, we know that people are being deliberately starved by a so-called democracy by the name of Israel. The governments of the world, with a few exceptions, are allowing this to happen. Shame on them.
It is being left, once again, to the people to point out how very wrong this is.
Be in no doubt, these are crimes against God and humanity.
Jane Porteous, Kinross.
The West is complicit
In your recent article '[[Israel]] strikes kill at least 20 in [[Gaza]] as Lammy threatens more sanctions' (The Herald, July 23) the Foreign Secretary is quoted as saying he is 'appalled and sickened by [[Israel]]'s actions in [[Gaza]]'.
I suggest that Israel's actions with regard to its treatment of the Palestinians will go down in history as an extreme example of the inhumanity of which we as a species are capable. Being halfway through the third decade of the 21st century, we apparently have made little progress in our 'moral evolution'.
I wish to pass on some sentences from an article by Rabbi Noa Sattath, Executive Director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel which I read in the liberal/left Israeli newspaper Haaretz (July 22): 'Israelis forget that human beings live in Gaza. If people aren't human beings, they can be starved, beaten and raped. We need to extricate ourselves from the moral abyss into which we have tumbled.'
I suggest that the 'we' referred to in the immediately previous paragraph is not just the Israeli government but those countries in the West which have aided and abetted Benjamim Netanyahu in his genocide. One way of our making reparations to the Palestinians would be for the UK to take the lead in working towards the implementation of the two-state solution.
John Milne, Uddingston.
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Other dates to remember
Disturbingly, much of our media continue to imply that the current conflict in Gaza had its origin on October 7, 2023. Along with "9/11" the date is a shorthand for attacks in which Americans and Israelis died. I challenge you to tell me what September 16 or April 13 or April 9 represent. Significantly, few of your readers will know but it is your duty to remind them of these dates.
On April 9, 1948 the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin was attacked by the Irgun and other Zionist terrorists and 107 civilians killed. The rest were driven out in this early attempt at ethnic cleansing.
On September 16, 1982 the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon were attacked by Lebanese fascists, assisted by Israeli forces and between 1,500 and 2,000 men, women and children were massacred. On April 13, 1996 Israeli aircraft attacked a village in South Lebanon, Mansouri, after ordering the inhabitants to evacuate. The volunteer ambulance driver packed his own family and his neighbours into the ambulance to flee. The ambulance was rocketed, with the death of all it occupants except the driver. I could go on. The list is endless.
So you see that this horror did not begin on October 7, 2023 and, for the Palestinians, it continues and is likely to do so until they are eliminated.
Our press could do the right thing and commemorate these anniversaries. unless it is only the lives of Americans and Israelis that matter. I beg you to do so.
David Currie, Tarland.
But why Troon?
Feeling sympathy for the poor residents of Prestwick and Turnberry, we didn't expect that The Donald's visit to Ayrshire would bother us. We were wrong. Our usual walk through Troon this morning (July 25), past Donald Crescent incidentally, was blocked by police, who have set up camp at the local high school, necessitating a detour round its perimeter. Is nowhere immune to the disruption he causes?
David Bruce, Troon.
1,000 years? So what?
I agree that "we must focus on nuclear" (Letters, July 24) because the closer we look, the more obvious it is to see what a dangerous pig in a poke it is. Your correspondent Peter Wright claims that discarded turbine blades cannot be sent to landfill – and in the next line, tells us that in the USA they are buried. He states that we are a clever species who will be able to reduce the half-life of toxic nuclear waste but he believes that we are incapable of ever recycling turbine blades. He, rightly, points out that concrete bases for turbines produce a lot of CO2 but omits to highlight the megatons of concrete required to build a nuclear power station and even more for waste storage.
He tells us that Hitachi is experimenting with a reactor that might be able to reduce the half-life of nuclear waste from 30,000 years to a mere 1,000. I wonder if he can name an institute, government, empire or supervisory body that has ever survived that long, or more importantly, one in the future that could monitor the safe storage for that length of time and even less likely, one to provide that service for the waste we have already produced, with a 30,000 year half-life.
David Hay, Minard.
A truly sad loss
I was truly saddened to hear of the passing of Sir Jamie McGrigor ("Tributes to 'kind and dedicated' former Tory MSP McGrigor who has died at 75", The Herald, July 23).
Jamie devoted so much of his life to public service – first as an MSP and later as a councillor for Argyll and Bute. But more than his titles or years of service, it was the way he carried himself that left a lasting impression on so many of us.
Thoughtful, kind, and principled, Jamie was someone who brought both wisdom and compassion to everything he did. I had the real honour of working alongside him on Argyll and Bute Council.
He was never interested in attention or praise – he simply got on with the job and always kept the people he served at the heart of every decision. In a world where politics can often feel cynical or performative, Jamie was the real thing: steady, sincere, and deeply committed to making life better for others.
He will be missed – not just as a public figure, but as a colleague and a good man.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family, his friends, and all those across our community who had the privilege of knowing him.
Rest in peace, Sir Jamie. Thank you for your service.
Councillor Alastair Redman, Kintyre and the Islands ward, Islay.
It's economics, not misogyny
The lack of common sense, relativity and any basic understanding of how sponsors choose to invest their cash creates a spurious argument about gender injustice ("Fresh funding boost to resolve gender 'injustice' in Scottish golf", The Herald, July 24).
All sports sponsorship is based on the value of brand exposure via the media and TV in particular. The whole assessment is based on viewing figures. Gender has nothing to with it. Indeed, the separation of male and female sports is, in itself, based on the belief that female sportswoman would struggle very badly to survive in any male version of a sport. Women's golf has made huge strides forward in the past 20 years, as has women's football.
However, I headed along to Irvine this morning (July 24) to play at my course and passed by Dundonald Golf Club at around 9.30am. The Women's Scottish Open is being held there today. No traffic jams, no police directing traffic. Consider that compared to the men's event at the Renaissance Club recently.
This is why TV put so much more cash into men's golf. It's economics, not misogyny. It's like trying to say the SPFL teams should be getting the same as English Premier League teams. It's just not possible.
In order for women's golf or football to continue to grow it's essential that more women start to actually attend the tournaments and matches. If there were 20k people a day at the Women's Scottish Open then it wouldn't take long for TV to pump more cash in. The big objective for the leaders of women's sports is to increase attendances steadily over the next five years. That's common sense.
John Gilligan, Ayr.
Charlotte Laffar of England at the Women's Scottish Open at Dundonald Links (Image: PA)
Pronoun problems
This obsession amongst the vocal minority about which incorrect pronoun they must be referred to, in order to keep their thin skins intact, is becoming ridiculous. As previous contributors have noted, all grammatical sense sometimes goes out of the window. Remember Sam Smith and his aspiration to be a "fisherthem"? That suggests that those he would class as binary would be a "fisherhim" or "fisherher". (I shan't apologise for using the words "his" and "he" in the preceding sentences. To my mind, I'm not misgendering him. He's misgendering himself. In fact, the word "misgender" exists in neither my Chambers nor Oxford dictionaries).
Brian Johnston, Torrance.
Delayed reaction
With the plight of the victims of the infected blood and Post Office scandals being recently highlighted once again, I have to, in my 79th year, agree that you are never past learning.
MoD: it actually stands for Masters of Delay. The wretched Establishment at its best.
Andrew Liddell, Banknock.