Is it any wonder that the UK is such an unequal society?

The Herald Scotland

16-06-2025

Do our imperial masters still consider our country to be part of the British Empire and try to consolidate that status by handing out a few baubles in the hope of keeping the masses happy? No wonder the UK is such an unequal society, led by a Prime Minister who also happens to be a benighted knight of the realm.
Dennis Canavan, Bannockburn.
Inexcusable indifference
I refer to Doug Maughan's letter of June 13, 'Hypocrisy and double standards taint the West's view of Israel'.
I suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu believes that as long as he has Donald Trump guarding his back, he has nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on four judges at the ICC over the tribunal's investigation into Israel's alleged war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
While the five countries (thankfully including the UK) who are imposing sanctions on two Israeli far-right ministers are members of the ICC, neither Israel nor the US is. Both are countries which believe they are above international law, outwith the bounds of common decency.
Mr Maughan's letter ought to be recognised as a call not only to our 'leaders' but to each one of us. We must resist 'the temptation to shrug and look away'. Indifference, silence, on our part to such suffering as the Palestinians are experiencing is inexcusable and makes us allies of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers.
John Milne, Uddingston.
* Doug Maughan may also be interested to know that it has been reported that former Labour MP Lord Austin has been sent by the government to Israel 'as a trade envoy to maintain our relationship with Israeli businesses.'
Money is also regularly raised by the sale of Israeli government bonds on the London market. Israeli banks involved in the West Bank are also active in London.
I'm sure that the Prime Minister, being an ex-lawyer, will be able to explain to this confused member of the public why Israel's activities in Gaza and the West Bank are much less serious than those of Russia in Ukraine and the former South African government, both sanctioned.
Ewan Henderson, Haddington.
Let's sanction this warfare state
History repeats itself with false claims about what a perceived enemy is about to do. On February 3, 2003, British journalists were handed a dossier purporting to show Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready to be used within days in an attack on the UK. Tony Blair went on television later that month saying Iraq had 'vast quantities of... anthrax, VX nerve agent, and mustard gas' and we had to strike.
On June 14, 2025 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Iran could have produced a nuclear weapon in a very short time' while a henchman averred that 'Iran had enough fission material for 15 nuclear bombs within days'. Yet weeks earlier Tulsi Gabbard, the US National Intelligence Director, stated to Congress that the US 'continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon' and that its leader 'has not authorised a nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003'.
Over the past year Israel has mercilessly bombed Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran, killing thousands and causing chaos and carnage. It is a warfare state. With a population of 10 million it has over 600 warplanes, not far short of the total strength of the RAF. It is led by an extreme right-wing cabal untrusted by 70% of the Israeli people, according to opinion polls.
It's time for the UK to place sanctions on this dangerous regime and stop supplying arms, intelligence and material to it.
William Loneskie, Lauder, Berwickshire.
Spineless attitude towards Iran
My, how times change. Under our current Labour party leadership Britain has given away the Chagos Isles, handed the EU a say in the future of Gibraltar and now produces no response to the Iranian threat to our shores if we aid Israel.
Where is the spine of the British government? When given a choice of supporting Iran or Israel in the current situation there should be no hesitation yet there is and Labour has been very critical of only Israel.
Israel has targeted precise locations for missiles whilst Iran has just fired them off indiscriminately. Where is the harsh criticism of Iran, where the press can only report stories favourable to the regime? Does Labour think the world will really be safer if Iran has a nuclear bomb? Right now that seems to be its position, ably backed up in Scotland by the theoretically anti-nuclear SNP and the Greens.
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
Nuclear power and renewables
Can anyone explain to me how hydro power and nuclear power are equivalent in how they supply electricity to the grid? ('Should Scotland blindly follow England down the nuclear power path?', Rebecca McQuillan, June 12).
My understanding is that the amount of energy produced by a nuclear plant is pretty much fixed. It can not easily be modulated to increase or reduce output and the only change comes when it is being serviced (a planned break) or when there is a fault (an unplanned break).
Whereas the hydro power system that Rebecca talks about has a reservoir into which water can be pumped at times of excess electricity. Then, at times of high demand for electricity, water can be released from the reservoir to generate power. The hydro power/reservoir system works like a battery that can be switched on and off at times of high or low demand.
So nuclear power and the hydro/reservoir system perform fundamentally differently. If we have nuclear power, we need an additional system to deal with the ups and downs of electricity demand and to deal with the times when the nuclear power station closes down, which can happen unexpectedly.
This flexible source of energy could be provided by a battery type system (such as the hydro power/reservoir system) or a generator that can be powered up and down easily (such as a gas-fired power station) or a cable from Norway or somewhere. Nuclear power does nothing to offset the ups and downs of renewables.
J. Pountain, Glasgow.
A fair system of Legal Aid
One has to hope that our nation is sufficiently civilised as to enable those of otherwise insufficient means to obtain access to legal representation in our courts ('Scots court chaos looms as solicitors boycott scheme', June 10).
At the same time, that seems unlikely to happen when you consider the competing claims on public finances, such as the NHS, the putative care service, dilapidated schools, housing crisis, national defence, winter fuel payments, the two-child benefit cap, ferries and other causes that are more likely than legal aid to appeal to the electorate.
Even if the current campaign were to achieve a realistic settlement, for how long would that last? Clearly the government has no long-term will to support an effective legal aid system. I would therefore like to ask the solicitors' profession where lies the constitutional duty to provide public access to justice, whether with the government as the national executive or with the judicial arm of the nation's constitution.
Certainly, the government is signed up to international treaties to provide access to justice but that appears to have cut little ice in the last 40 years since the state took over control of the legal aid system from the solicitors' profession.
The whole raison d'etre of that profession and of the constitutional monopoly it enjoys in professional legal representation, is that it has a responsibility to the whole nation, whether or not the government provides sufficient financial support. A solicitor's duty to an immediate client may therefore require to be balanced with the responsibility of the profession to the public as a whole.
Consideration therefore might need to be given to a system which operates in other jurisdictions. whereby the solicitors' profession provides legal representation for the impecunious, financed equitably across the profession out of fees paid by the financially more fortunate clients of that profession.
This would be somewhat along the lines of the legal representation that was made available via the Poor Roll, prior to the formal institution of the legal aid system which has now fallen into substantial disrepair.
Michael Sheridan, Scotstoun, Glasgow.