Shame on you, Labour. How can you still sell arms to Israel?

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

Sandy Slater, Stirling.
• What appalling, deeply distressing scenes were screened on Channel 4 News on Tuesday night with people in Gaza desperate for food being mown down by Israeli Defence Force bullets.
Former UK Supreme Court senior judge Lord Sumption was interviewed on the programme and said he believed Israel was committing gross breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza by killing on an indiscriminate scale. He also opined that genocide was the most plausible explanation for what was taking place.
Gaza is now in ruins with most of its infrastructure, hospitals, schools and other public buildings shattered beyond repair. People are starving, hundreds are being slaughtered every week and children are suffering unimaginable horrors. Why oh why are our Labour MPs not up in arms; how can they watch this deteriorating catastrophe every night on TV news and do nothing? Why is Scottish Secretary Ian Murray not leading a delegation to Westminster to demand we stop supplying Israel with arms as of now?
I truly despair.
Alan Woodcock, Dundee.
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Scotland could be Ground Zero
With great fanfare, Keir Starmer and John Healey this week revealed that the mysterious magic money tree, never available for things that people need but always in full blossom for incendiary hardware, is once again being shaken down for "defence".
Meanwhile, a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA tells the journal Foreign Policy that "the Russians recently revised their nuclear-use doctrine, and one of the things that they specifically said in there was that if there are attacks by an adversary on important state or military infrastructure that would disrupt responses, potentially by Russia's nuclear forces, that is potentially a trigger for Russian nuclear use".
The fact that Ukraine is a non-nuclear nation becomes irrelevant, because it is perceived to be enabled by the US and Nato, which ARE nuclear powers, ergo justifying a potential nuclear response.
Long ago, a Westminster political correspondent said that if there were to be a nuclear war, he was certain that in the aftermath I would be saying "I told you so" [as a former chair of CND]. It gives me no pleasure at all to say we are very possibly nearing that stage, and none of the things Messrs Healey and Starmer have announced would make any difference, even if we already had them.
I don't need to remind anybody where Ground Zero in Europe is. Oh yes, aside from the US submarines currently in the Atlantic, Scotland would be the most significant target. In fact, in US nuclear war planning, it's always been "independent". It's called Unit 11.
Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh.
PM is right over Russia
Hugh Kerr's 'the Russians are not our enemies' claim (Letters, June 3 on the basis that 'they lost 20 million people helping us defeat Nazi Germany', is I suggest delusional. Firstly, Stalin, who murdered millions of his own citizens, not least in Ukraine, before the war, was an ally of Hitler, until Hitler betrayed him and invaded the Soviet Union. Then the Soviets became our allies on the basis that our enemy's enemy was our ally, but certainly not in reality our friend. Nor is Putin's dictatorship, murderers of civilians, abductors of children and suppressors of political opposition, the kind of friend I would wish to have. It is only too clear that his invasion of Ukraine is just the start of his dream of expanding westwards.
Whatever Keir Starmer's failings, he is right to warn of the threat that Putin's Russia poses to European liberal democracy, of which the citizens of these islands are a fundamental part. By relying on American heft, Europe, UK included, has for too long under-invested in defence. With Donald Trump in the White House, those days are over. We must shoulder that burden ourselves because a government's first responsibility is the defence and safety of its people, and we know the price of appeasement. As the Romans had it: "Si vis pacem, para bellum' – if you want peace, prepare for war.
Roy Pedersen, Inverness.
Despairing of the SNP
Where does one even begin with the SNP? No, to £2.5 million to one of Scotland's and the UK's cutting-edge employers ("SNP in munitions ban hypocrisy row over Ferguson Marine", heraldscotland, June 3); yes to £2.5m to promote a language that virtually no one in Scotland speaks or even comprehends.
Then, the leader and his prospective candidate in the Hamilton by-election disagree on how to manage child poverty, an issue that's been an awful by-product of capitalism since that economic system became dominant ("SNP candidate Loudon takes different stance on the Scottish Child Payment from Swinney", The Herald, June 4). You'd think that a party who'd been in power for 18 years would have the perfect opportunity to come up with fresh ideas on how to eradicate child poverty, and many other of society's problems.
But wait, if that government is the parochial SNP, whose total stock of ideas, strategies and tactics amounts to how to make Westminster and the UK look bad, then none of our problems is addressed, and you end up with our leading Scottish politician eating rusks with two-year-olds, rather than talking to fellow politicians about the defence of the UK which, last time I looked, included Scotland.
Stuart Brennan, Glasgow.
Capital woes will get worse
Edinburgh's woes continue with the £1.7bn sea of debt that is only going to get bigger ("Edinburgh faced with £1.7 billion 'sea of debt' amid fears for services", The Herald, June 4) This is symptomatic of the general situation in Scotland as a whole under the less than careful guidance of the SNP. Large debts accrue because of reckless spending and suddenly taxes must rise to cover this but it is never quite enough and so the cycle goes on ever upward. There is a limit and it has already been breached.
Edinburgh wants to introduce a visitor levy, and is also mooting a congestion zone tax on cars. Elsewhere, taxes on cruise ship passengers are in the pipeline. This will actually lead to the exact opposite effect, a drop in revenue as people go elsewhere. If Scots return an SNP administration in 2026 all this will continue until the penny finally drops with Holyrood, that is once it has sorted out its toilet rules properly. Scotland is going down the pan.
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and with Defence Secretary John Healey (Image: PA)
Flip side of the equation
Once again Guy Stenhouse seems determined to present his jigsaw but with several key pieces missing ("Public sector workers who refuse to come into the office should be sacked", The Herald, May 31). He makes rather sweeping assumptions about Tesco and Aldi and suggests that their performance in one field somehow equips them, or other private sector organisations, to deliver important public services.
To take the examples he cites, Tesco and Aldi can certainly be considered successful if profit levels are the only factor taken into account – £3.1 billion and £553 million respectively. At face value, he might be entitled to think he has a case.
However he might want to consider other significant figures in this equation such as the fact that 30% of children in the UK are now living in poverty. He might also want to look at the exponential rise in food banks in recent years and the fact that over three million people last year were having to make use of them. While there are many factors giving rise to this situation, I believe it does call into question the "success" of the supermarkets if their pricing policies are putting their products beyond the reach of a significant number of people, particularly the most vulnerable.
Mr Stenhouse might consider taking a more measured view the next time he wants to offer up another "private sector good/public sector bad" rant.
Andy Crichton, Cupar.