It is not surprising that young men are choosing to carry weapons

The National

27-05-2025

It also betrays a rather signature MSP ignorance of day-to-day reality in impoverished, usually but not exclusively inner-city, communities in the context of threadbare social services and and several decades of alienation from more wealthy and more healthy citizens.
The public service depletion that contributes per force to the endemic decision by so many good young people to 'bear arms' is the complete evisceration of community policing that followed the establishment of a unitary police force in this country. Do people in political and social bubbles realise that a parallel justice and 'policing' system has emerged in the de facto absence of an adequately state-funded presence in daily life in many areas? Do they understand that some young men protect themselves and their loved ones by the carrying of, for the most part, deterrent weaponry?
READ MORE: Shona Craven: Young people have the right to feel disillusioned
A rudimentary 'justice' system has arisen in many areas to deal with criminal and antisocial behaviour in courts of summary street justice, as the police and by extension the state is not protecting either life or property with a properly funded, engaged and embraced community police service.
If Holyrood is to save, and at the same time improve, lives in all areas of Scottish life, from health to education and law and order ,it must commit, across political boundaries, to secede from a neoliberal Westminster colonial stranglehold and subscribe wholeheartedly to the commonweal principle that charity and justice begin at home.
Angela Constance's colleagues must provide a credible vision of justice in all areas of Scottish life and do the job their Scottish electorate are paying them to do without excuses and/or equivocation: seek radical constitutional change as their pre-eminent priority, and in the meantime have more cops with moral authority. Knives are a symptom of wounded lives that need radical surgery not sticking plasters!
Dr Andrew Docherty
Selkirk
IT is time the running sore of Brexit was given the chance to heal. The self-inflicted damage that Brexit has done economically has really only benefitted other countries.
The reality of the close interactions between economies and the illusion that one country can stand alone has been exposed. Trump's misguided tariff war has shown clearly just how interdependent even the biggest economy in the world is.
Brexit significantly weakened London as a financial centre. Before Brexit the London Stock Exchange was $1.5 TRILLION larger than Paris. Post-Brexit, the Paris region is emerging as the powerhouse of the EU with more than a hundred US-originated companies creating more than 4000 jobs.
READ MORE: Experts debunk Nigel Farage claim that scrapping net zero would save £40bn a year
The market speculator insiders benefited initially from the UK Brexit upheaval just as Trump's cronies did in the US tariff debacle.
The scenario: create confusion, exploit the resulting stock exchange fall, walk away with a large profit and look for another opportunity.
The fallout in damaged economies and poorer families is not their concern; their next big profit is.
The illusion that Brexit benefitted ordinary people and not the rich speculators is dead. Even Farage has moved on, attempting to ride on Donald Trump's coattails. Is he too a would-be dictator? People within Reform already have their doubts.
Andrew Milroy
Trowbridge, Kent
AS details of the UK-EU trade deal become clearer, the UK Government, even by its own admission, has highlighted that the economic gains resulting from it will be marginal.
At a recent meeting of G7 finance ministers in Canada, Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed the deal would add nearly £9 billion to the UK economy by 2040 and boost trade with the EU as Britain's single biggest trading partner.
The UK Government estimates that material changes in areas covered, such as fisheries, food and energy, will increase GDP by 0.2% by 2040.
Contrasting with this, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that Brexit will reduce the UK's long-term GDP by approximately 4% compared to remaining in the EU.
The deal shows the UK clearly moving towards a relationship with the EU that is the worst of both worlds: formally sovereign, yet locked in ongoing negotiations and deeply enmeshed in EU frameworks across the entire economy.
Moreover, these conditions also mean the UK can't strike a trade deal with the US involving food and agriculture unless there is no trans-shipment of goods, or unless the EU signs a trade deal with the US that solves this issue.
Trade deals with the likes of India, the US and the EU simply limit the immense economic damage of Brexit to the UK economy, rather than bringing any benefits.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh