What is Labour doing? Have we reached peak insanity?

The Herald Scotland

27-05-2025

Then there's immigration. Record inflows strain an already-overstretched NHS, housing, and public services. Illegal migrants reportedly cost £50,000 each per year for four-star hotels (rather than tents in France) and free services – while Labour wonders why 'smashing the gangs' isn't working. Adding insult to injury, we sprint toward net zero with billions in subsidies for an unreliable grid, despite our emissions being a global rounding error. The state even dictates which type of car to buy, how and where we drive, wielding taxation as a blunt control mechanism.
Worse still, we borrow billions for foreign and so-called climate aid while our debt exceeds 100% of GDP. Defence spending is inadequate as Russia prepares for war, yet Keir Starmer postures as a superpower. And then there's the Chagos Islands: we gave away sovereign British territory only to pay to lease it back.
Labour's 'fixing the foundations' slogan is a cruel gaslight as taxes and regulations suffocate growth. So, again: have we reached peak insanity, or is there worse to come?
Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.
A triumph we can ill afford
Another success trumpeted by Keir Starmer after his victories over Trump and Modi's tariffs and the Europeans' restrictions on trade access has been the decolonisation of the Chagos Islands by persuading Mauritius to take them on but lease back the base on Diego Garcia. This has been achieved at a cost, estimated by the Government at £3.4 billion over the 99 years of the initial lease but estimated as something more like £30bn by the Opposition. The Chagos Islanders, forcibly evacuated from their palm-fringed beaches and settled in Crawley, stay there despite their desire to return, but are being bought off with a £40 million trust fund.
The main user of the base is the United States, though it would (I suppose) be available to us if we wanted to fight a war with a neighbouring state bordering on or in the Indian Ocean, such as the Maldives, or to fly warplanes in support of the US in the Persian Gulf or over Gaza. Nevertheless, there has been no mention of the USA contributing to the cost of this trend-setting exercise in decolonisation.
Forget the ferries and ask how many more such triumphs can we afford.
James Scott, Edinburgh.
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Harsh lessons for the Government
There are four groups this rookie Labour Government has learned that it is political dynamite to tangle with because faces can be put to them and shown evocatively on screen, people for whom the general public harbours much sympathy.
One of those four is on the verge of finding that measures imposed on it are about to be mitigated, namely, the reduction of the winter fuel allowance will be recalibrated on the grounds that our economic circumstances are improving. Welcome as this will be, will the memory of its insensitive introduction still rankle amongst those who had to endure the reduction over our recent winter?
Two more groups are likely to face an upturn with the improving economic climate when the two-child benefit cap is also softened with a means-tested approach while the introduction of inheritance tax upon farms with a particular property value will be revisited.
Only the fishermen's plight will be left to be addressed on the grounds that the 12-year agreement on fishing rights is overlong.
It has been a harsh and salutary lesson for this rather gauche government to see its popularity ratings plummet as a result of its failure to be aware of the knock-on effects of placing burdens on vulnerable groups.
If the Government fails to come to terms with such sensitive issues, then it will have doomed itself to adverse publicity of such a nature that it will be catapulted from power at the next General Election, unless it can transform the economy by then to the extent that the whole body politic experiences the benefits.
Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.
Why we need independence
Clearly after nearly a year in office Labour's betrayal is obvious, as like the Tories, the poor and vulnerable are again targeted. From the winter heating debacle and failure to protect the Grangemouth refinery, to the plight of the Waspi women and the war on claimants along with the fishing industry, this UK Labour government is faltering.
Surely any Labour government should be targeting the billions lost, each year, in corporate tax avoidance and fraud. Indeed instead of stealth taxes, a penny rise in income tax would bring in billions for the NHS, rail and roads; along with abandoning Trident, Britain's broken-down American-owned so-called independent nuclear deterrent.
Furthermore it's actively rumoured that the UK fleet of Vanguard submarines, which carry the outdated Trident nuclear missile system only 20 minutes from Glasgow, is falling apart. These weapons of mass destruction, at huge expense, do not protect us but actually make us a target.
In truth, only a richly-endowed independent Scotland (in line with happy and prosperous Nordic countries) in full control of all its assets, can progress towards a fairer, greener and prosperous nation; working with the other nations of the British Isles, Europe and the world.
Grant Frazer, Newtonmore.
Plight of care staff is shameful
There is an old saying, "the love, care and attention we give to the elderly is a measure of our humanity". What does it say of our humanity when we read reports that hundreds of care workers feel forced to go on strike ("Hundreds of care staff to strike over £38m U-turn", The Herald, May 24)? Carers have found it necessary, it is reported, to withdraw their labour because of the Government U-turn on £38 million of extra funding being made available. Within the last few years their pay has deteriorated and the service is currently in crisis.
This is the Government, then led by Nicola Sturgeon, which announced in 2021 the plan to establish a National Care Service at the time described as the most ambitious reform of the devolution era. This scheme was to end what was described as the "postcode lottery" of social care. However, the SNP Government eventually abandoned its plans when they lost the support from various groups, the participation of which was essential in order to make the scheme work.
We should be ashamed of ourselves that those caring for our elderly have been driven to the last resort of withdrawal of their labour. Our elderly, who have done so much for us during their lifetimes, deserve better.
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.
A Vanguard-class submarine (Image: PA) Sex workers are not all victims
Here we go again. A new law is proposed in Scotland banning men from buying sex. The hyperbole of the headline on Marissa MacWhirter's article ('Ash Regan's bill to outlaw men who buy sex simply pushes women into the shadows – and grave danger', The Herald, May 23) makes me wonder why society continues to regard women who make money from prostitution as "victims". Yes, I know drug addiction is given as the justification for the dangerous lifestyle choice some women make, but they are not all helpless and addicted. Many just like the money.
Glasgow City Council's Routes out of Prostitution has existed for years and helped several women to live safer lives. Can we just have a more balanced view please of the word "victim" in relation to this issue?
Elizabeth Mueller, Glasgow.
Netanyahu is storing up trouble
Has there ever been any country, other than Gaza, which has had a terrorist hiding in every single house and tent and a terrorist command and control centre in every hospital and school?
Even if Benjamin Netanyahu does not achieve his stated aim of taking and holding all of Gaza, and the West Bank, he is ensuring that he has created many times more implacable enemies on all of Israel's borders, which could at some future point see that country suffer the fate he plans for Gaza. He is also making it almost certain that the remaining hostages are all returned in body bags.
L McGregor, Falkirk.