It's clear that the SNP must move further to the left

The National

4 days ago

That was just so generous and a reflection of how The National treats its loyal readers. Also, a big 'thank you' to the very helpful Laura Webster who returned my voicemail message, and was keen to help, although by that point a nice woman at subscriptions had dealt with my query. Thanks Laura though for getting back to me. Dae ye think The Guardian wid dae that? Aye right!
Now for my letter ...
Last week, STV News did a piece about how younger adults in Scotland were now falling into poorer health earlier than previously.
The esteemed Professor Devi Sridhar (below) of the University of Edinburgh Medical School stated: 'Cancers, for example, are much higher in younger people compared to previous generations, and that's diet, it's sedentary behaviour, relating to air pollution, also stress, mental health and anxiety. Much of it, I would say, is down to where you live, your community, what you have access to, what is affordable, and that is where we see inequality playing a part too.'
If that is Devi's conclusions, that's mair than guid enough fur me!
Then a map of Scotland was put up, showing levels of life expectancy in different parts of oor great country. What it showed by a country mile is that if you are determined not to keel over any time soon, do everything you can to move to and live in Orkney! Average life expectancy there for guys is 70.4 years and for women, 72.1. You might think that's not that brilliant, but hang on!
The next best area for folk that stick aroond before they croak is Perth and Kinross at 65.4/66.6 (aye, youse women nearly always outlive us guys!). Then it's [[Edinburgh]], slightly lower – 64.6 / 65.8 – then a dramatic dip to Glasgow – 56.8 / 57.5. The programme didn't show every area of Scotland, like Fife, for example, where I live, or the Scottish Borders where I was born and raised.
It did, however, show the two worst areas for life expectancy in Scotland: North Lanarkshire – 53.2 / 52.5 – and North Ayrshire, where the guys are almost neck and neck with the women at 52.6 / 52.5.
Among these statistics, clearly Orkney is an outlier. However, as someone that lives in the central belt of Scotland, I don't want to make any assumptions about why this might be, due to the risk of attracting the ire of The National's brilliant very ain Rhoda Meek who lives on Tiree, and knows almost everything there is to know about island life. Mess wi Rhoda at yer peril, I reckon! So, Rhoda, can ye explain ... pretty please?
Seriously, the gulf in the life expectancy between Perth and Kinross and Edinburgh compared to North Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire, as well as Glasgow, to a lesser extent, is grotesque! Fur me, that's clearly doon tae dosh or the lack of!
The scary thing is that I reckon these discrepancies would be even worse if it wasn't for the Scottish Government's mitigation policies like the Scottish Child Payment, free prescriptions and many more including our tax rates which benefit those on lower incomes.
In other words, aw the stuff the Yoon press totally ignores!
These statistics surely mean the SNP need tae move mair tae the left as no doubt the formidable Mhairi Black, who has regrettably recently left the party, would approve of.
Forget the rich and powerful – they will vote for the Tories or Reform UK. However, Labour have totally lost their way and no longer do 'Labour' stuff!
Between now and May 2026, surely the SNP have to move heaven and earth to prise those folk that were back in the day Labour voters, but moved to the SNP in their droves (like me), only to fairly recently get disillusioned and move back to Labour (unlike me!).
Hell, just tell them ye will make them live longer for god's sake!
Ivor Telfer
Dalgety Bay, Fife
I WAS born in post-war West Germany, in the decade following the murder of six million Jews in Europe. At the time, my father was a captain in the US Army providing dental care at an American base in the period following Marshall Plan reconstruction.
My late uncle, as a teenaged medic, was wounded fighting the Nazis, bearing the scars and the trauma of what he had experienced throughout a lifetime of raising a family and caring for his cancer patients in Boston.
My maternal grandmother's family fled the Tsarist pogroms against Russian Jews, eventually finding refuge in Massachusetts.
My grandson's maternal great grandmother was saved from Auschwitz through the intercession of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania, who provided transit visas to thousands of Polish Jews.
I grew up in a family, faith and culture that respected the human rights of all people.
For over one year, nine months, three weeks, Israel – with the support of presidents Biden and Trump, the Republican and Democratic parties, and many Christian and Jewish organisations – has laid siege to the civilian population of the Gaza territory, inflicting greater net destruction than was done to German cities like Hamburg in the Second World War.
According to Unicef, more than 50,000 children have already been wounded or killed during the conflict.
The United States is underwriting a government that is engaged in the deliberate starvation of children.
Since the time of Abraham, millennia ago, the Jewish people have never committed crimes on this scale; indeed, there are no historical comparisons. The scale of destruction is biblical; in the totality of Jewish history, the only comparable 'reductions' of cities are to be found in the Torah.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his ruling coalition and the people of Israel are responsible for this atrocity; but Americans and the Jewish diaspora will forever be remembered for our moral abdication.
The butchers of Hamas may have precipitated the war with the slaughter, rape and abductions of October 7, but the Jewish state has moral agency in what followed – which is a 21st-century genocide.
The genocide of one people does not justify the genocide of another; that course leads only to endless cycles of barbarity. Israel was, after all, founded as a safe haven for Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Shortly after the war broke out, I told my cousin, an emergency physician whose father it was who had fought the Nazis, that it seemed to me that a vast number of our fellow Americans, Jews and the Israeli people had lost their moral compasses.
I added, as the war continued, that the cruelly cynical Netanyahu and Hamas leadership would solve the hostage crisis with body bags. Hamas and Netanyahu have continued the war because it sustains their power.
I was a kibbutz volunteer in Israel the summer before the Yom Kippur War of 1973. PM Golda Meir, who brilliantly led the defence of her country, desisted from destroying the retreating Egyptian Third Army, in interest of winning the peace that she negotiated with Anwar Sadat.
I grew up with a respect for Israel's history of righteous self-defence. Judaism and the Jewish people have been betrayed by what has transpired in the past 21 months.
The Gaza War has divided the Jewish community in the United States, as well as the Democratic base, and it was a significant factor in the re-election of President Trump.
Here in high desert community of Santa Fe, the small Jewish community is a house divided.
These acts of inhumanity are happening on our watch, with our money and with the weapons we have provided.
What makes matters worse – and far more complicated – is that embedded within the legitimate peace movement in the United States are antisemites and people who don't believe in Israel's right to exist.
I will not march alongside masked people calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
I believe, absolutely, in Israel and Palestine's rights to exist as sovereign states
The American people, even in this polarised time, largely support three things: The complete disclosure of the Epstein investigation; the defence of Ukraine, and the end to the blockade of humanitarian relief to [[Gaza]] and the release of surviving hostages.
Therein lies the potential for a bipartisan consensus for action. The MAGA movement claims to be the champion of children's welfare; the rights of the unborn; the salvation of children from paedophile conspiracies.
Let them demonstrate their compassion. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is seemingly incapable of making an unambiguous moral decision on [[Gaza]].
What is happening now we will never live down.
All military aid to Israel must be suspended immediately, the siege lifted and the massive flow of food and medical supplies initiated.
[[Palestine]] should be universally recognised as a sovereign nation, and negotiations leading to a two-state solution and a durable peace, begun in earnest under the aegis of regional and Nato powers and the United Nations.
The collapse of talks in Doha underscores the fact that Netanyahu and Hamas have little incentive to end the war and that US president Donald Trump is not an honest broker in these negotiations, having publicly discussed the removal of Palestinians from the territory and its redevelopment for beachfront property. Most recently, he advised Netanyahu to 'finish the job' in Gaza.
The US, Israel and Palestine are led by unreliable narrators, whose interests lie not in the truth, but the perpetuation of their power – at any expense.
Death by starvation is agonising torture; and even if and when adequate nutrition begins to reach Gazans, the long-term health consequences for the survivors include increased morbidity and mortality, and cognitive and immune disorders.
While we will never wash our hands of these stains, we can act now to spare innocents further unimaginable suffering and death.
In Gaza, dying children are telling their parents that they want to be in a heaven where there is food.
Eric Radack
Santa Fe, New Mexico
AS regards the vaunted two-state solution for Palestine, what I would like to know is just exactly where the State of Palestine would be.
If anyone imagines that Israel will give up and withdraw from the 60% of the West Bank it has already illegally occupied and settled or the Golan Heights or other annexed territories in the region they either deliberately ignore or are ignorant of the history of Israeli expansionism and its stated aims or are utterly deluded.
David J Crawford
Glasgow