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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Will Scots Labour MPs be Starmer's lapdogs over Palestine?
Labour MP Richard Burgon said this was 'truly sickening, especially given the genocide being carried out' in Gaza. It's also a flagrant violation of international law. The International Court of Justice has been totally clear that all states must stop any co-operation that aids Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine'. So not only are we supplying Israel with weapons: we are also, quite disgracefully, training their soldiers on UK soil. It is surely now imperative that we have a full, independent public inquiry into the UK's role in the slaughter in Gaza as quickly as possible. This new development must, inevitably, only add to the suffering already being endured by the Palestinian people. It will be interesting to see if any Scottish Labour MPs will protest about it or whether they will continue to act as if they were the Prime Minister's lapdogs and remain silent. Alan Woodcock, Dundee. A simple question for the taxman The reason that all pensioners should receive the winter fuel payment is the same reason that all children should be eligible for primary education, free school meals, free nursery places and for child benefit, and why the state pension should not be means-tested. We should never have a system where someone earning one extra pound is worse off than those without it when they were below a threshold. There should be no cliff edges. If we decide that someone should only keep 45p of that extra pound (the Universal Credit taper for someone below the tax threshold), 32p (the taper combined with basic rate income tax and national insurance), 50p (the top rate of income tax and national insurance above £125,140, and also between £43,663 and £50,000), 79p (the intermediate tax rate for a pensioner), or 91.25p (basic rate dividend tax), or all of it, then that should be a simple question for the tax system. The tax system will also collect more of whatever you do keep if you spend it on cigarettes instead of on food or children's clothes, or other zero-VAT items. If we decide that pensioners need some extra cash to heat their homes during the winter, as we don't expect them to be at school or at work during the day, we should give them all the extra cash, and expect them all to contribute towards it with the same rates of taxation that everyone else pays. While Brian Wilson ('A universal truth: not all pensioners deserve the winter fuel allowance. But U-turn is welcome', June 12) might complain that a pensioner in Scotland receives £100 more in their winter fuel payment, those with incomes above the £35,000 threshold are paying most of it back in extra tax compared to England, and those above £40,000 will be paying all of it back. Will Mr Wilson stick to his newly revealed principles and argue in a future column that parents above a certain income threshold should pay for primary school education? Or will he return to the old-fashioned Labour principle of universalism? Alan Ritchie, Glasgow. Turning a defeat into near-victory I see that SNP MP Pete Wishart is bigging himself up on social media, telling us how long he's served as an MP and informing us that he's one of the separatist politicians who 'almost won an independence referendum'. So, in SNP la la land, must we assume clearly that losing means almost winning? Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire. Russia's military incompetence Britain was spending about 7% of GDP on defence in the 1950s. This has now shrunk to little more than 2%, less if we remove service pensions from the calculation. This makes us as one of the top spenders in Western Europe. The USA spends 3.19%. Russia is spending 6.3%. I suggest it is a little fanciful for George Morton (letters, June 8) to claim that Nato was gearing up for any sort of conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia. When the Ukraine war began, Germany offered Zelenskyy 7,000 helmets. That's how war-like they were. Russia has a long history of extreme military incompetence. They keep attacking smaller neighbours and either get beaten (Japan 1904) or do badly initially, but grind on and eventually extract some territorial concessions as they did with Finland in the Winter War (1939-40) or Poland (c 1920-21). Ukraine seems to be an example of the latter situation. Russia's position would be much worse if Nato had made a serious attempt to supply arms before and after the invasion. If Russia is being attacked every day, as Mr Morton suggests, it is only because, in the words of Donald Trump, they are 'bombing the hell out of Ukraine'. Russia bombs hospitals, schools and apartment blocks. Ukraine shoots up some warplanes. Putin denounces this as terrorism and bombs some more civilians. Nato did take action over Kosovo to prevent the Serbs massacring the Kosovars as they had the Bosniaks. The UN should have done it but Russia would have vetoed any such move. Mr Morton's view on EU democracy seems to come directly from the Putin/Trump/Farage book of propaganda. The EU Commission is accountable to the directly elected European Parliament. Each EU member sends a commissioner, chosen by their elected government. The commission, like the US presidency, is therefore an example of indirect democracy, which is a whole lot more democracy than Putin is willing to tolerate. We live in dark times but the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Ronald Cameron, Banavie. Why we need a Scottish Trump Every day under the SNP administration we hear of more Scottish companies closing down in Scotland. The latest news this week concerns yet another two companies – bus maker Alexander Dennis and the Scotbeef abattoir. This leaves me to believe that we need a Scottish Donald Trump to save our Scottish industries. The SNP's banning of fracking led to the closure of Grangemouth refinery and they are intent in closing down the entire North Sea operation to keep the Green party happy. Perhaps it is time to give Nigel Farage and Reform a chance to show how they can save Scottish industries instead of running them down. Dennis Forbes Grattan, Bucksburn, Aberdeen. Medicine demands world leadership Robert Kennedy Jr, as US health secretary, has appointed eight replacement vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel since he fired all of the previous scientific experts. Is this a misnomer, as many of them could be considered anti-vaccine and their scientific expertise could be questioned? For the US, the recent measles outbreaks provide evidence for the need for more vaccines. Measles is not just annoying spots: it can kill. For the rest of the world the danger is in both the possible spread of diseases and more in the lack of support for the development of further vaccines by American scientists. The world needs leadership in medicine and medical research. Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia. Joined-up thinking must be a priority We welcome the Chancellor's announcement of £2.6 billion to decarbonise the UK's transport system. The commitment to electric vehicles, particularly vans and HGVs, is a vital step towards a lower-emission future. It's especially encouraging to see £400 million ringfenced for the rollout of charging infrastructure. This investment must be focused on delivering a public charging network that is reliable, accessible, and fit for commercial vehicle use. The commercial vehicle sector is responsible for 10% of UK emissions but decarbonising it at scale means creating confidence in infrastructure, not just vehicles. Infrastructure developers are already making progress, but a joined-up approach between government, developers and fleet operators will be key to accelerating the transition. Michael Shaw, CEO, Aegis Energy, Wakefield.
Scotsman
29-04-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Scotsman Letters: People who choose to have large families should pay their way
Scotland can't afford cost of raising children, says reader Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Alan Woodcock says the UK Government is keeping children in poverty via the two-child cap (Letters, 26 April). Not so – it is those parents who have more children than they can afford. Last December the Scottish Government wanted to remove the two-child benefit cap but this was blocked by the UK Government. Scottish Finance Secretary Shona Robison claimed the change would cost just £100 million a year but the Scottish Fiscal Commission said it would be £150m for 2026-27, rising to £200m in 2029-30. The Institute for Fiscal Studies stated it could eventually cost £300m a year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Child benefit payments are available from the birth of the child until they reach 16 years of age, or 19 years of age if the young person stays in approved education or training. Why should Scottish taxpayers be forced to subsidise people who have large families, many of whom will then need to apply for a bigger council house? Shona Robison wanted to remove the two-child benefit cap in Scotland Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian Unwise sum It would reasonable to spend £49 million on investigations which prevented a major terrorist atrocity such as the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center or the Bataclan massacre in Paris. Similarly, it might be reasonable to spend such a sum to catch a prolific serial killer, such as the Yorkshire Ripper. Is it, however, reasonable to spend £49m and counting on a public inquiry to determine whether race was a factor in the death of one man, Sheku Bayoh, in the town of Kirkcaldy? That is, £24m for the inquiry itself and £25m by Police Scotland in connection with the inquiry. To ask the question is to answer it. No, of course not. The public sector does not have unlimited resources. Westminster, in this case Holyrood and local councils need to start using the taxpayers' money prudently. Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife Work it out Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad May I take this opportunity to reply to Mr Woodcock (Letters, 26 April)? As I have said previously in these pages, I am not anti-independence – I am a realist who understands the workings of a balance sheet. Of the points I made in previous correspondence, as always the SNP apologists never say the points made are ridiculous or wrong. No, they ignore the realities of what I say, coming up with unrelated nonsense. Add to this the utter incompetence of the SNP in government, the amount of money wasted on navel-gazing nonsense like the deposit return scheme and ferries, the horrendous amount of wasted money on insane legal fights – the list is endless. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Perhaps Mr Woodcock could do as I have requested on many occasions – that is, get a sheet of A4 paper and a pen – no pencils as rubbing out is not allowed – and write down how we can finance independence, how we would re-enter the EU, how we would be protected after dumping our nuclear deterrent, how we would keep the lights on while destroying our oil and gas industries and finally how we would trade with the 'enemy foreign nation' down south – our biggest trading market – with all the restrictions independence would bring. Did I mention currency and banking? Perhaps Mr Woodcock may use a term other than 'cheap jibes' to describe my request above. If it wasn't for the 'good ship United Kingdom' bailing out these incompetents on a daily basis, we'd have sunk years ago. The day a balance sheet is put in front of me showing how independence can work, I will be the first to sign up. David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders Gaza graveyard If I were living in Trump's America, I would be arrested, if not deported, for what I'm about to write in this letter. Anything less than total, unconditional support for Israel is deemed to be unacceptable, and regarded as anti-Semitism. What exactly has Israel to do to lose that support? Not content with the carpet bombing of Gaza, Israel has unleashed its latest lethal weapon, namely starvation. It seems that war crime is simply trumped by yet another war crime. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's well past time to give total, unconditional support to the beleaguered Palestinians in a situation which has been compared to the Nakba of 1948. Arguably, it's worse, and Gaza has been described as a Palestinian graveyard. In 1948 the Palestinians were ruthlessly expelled from their homeland to accommodate the state of Israel. While I accept Israel's right to a homeland after their own Nakba of the Holocaust, the Israelis themselves should recognise a similar right for the Palestinians. Trump's America, described by Benjamin Netanyahu, as 'the best friend that Israel has ever had', tragically supports the elimination of Palestinians from Gaza and the time has surely come for the watching world to become the Palestinians' best friends. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Small steps Whether one agrees with their politics or not, most would consider Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney to be serious politicians, not puppets of the economic elite acting on behalf of the British Establishment. Nigel Farage, on the other hand, has made a rewarding career out of conjuring up the illusion of a successful UK through distracting from the dire long-term consequences of following regressive policies such as those pursued by US President Donald Trump. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Those who, like William Ballantine (Letters, 28 April), would state that 'the SNP claim that independence will solve all our ills', would also be accurate in alluding to 'pie in the sky' if correct in making such statements. However, most genuine supporters of self-determination agree that independence will not solve all of Scotland's problems which have accumulated over decades, if not centuries, but democracy will most certainly be improved, and serve the Scottish public better, with overriding control in Edinburgh rather than London. With regard to the economy and public services, there will be many challenges ahead whether Scotland remains in a dysfunctional union or becomes independent. That said, with independence all the political parties governing Scotland will be focused on making Scotland a prosperous, fair and equal country for all of its citizens instead of some operating as 'branch offices' of parties focused on enriching those inhabiting the southern corner of Britain (as regrettably evidenced even by the Labour Party in government at Westminster). Will more mistakes be made in government procurement – yes, as repeatedly exhibited by governments around the world, but hopefully not of the scale of the billions wasted on 'useless' PPE or on the high speed railway to 'nowhere'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Will progressive moves to make Scotland a fairer and more egalitarian country often be delayed by vested interests – yes, but as our population becomes even more informed and enlightened our basic humanity will eventually overcome the forces of regression that would take us back to a darker past. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian Take charge Chris Skidmore, who is a former Conservative energy minister, sings from the same hymn sheet as Labour Minister Ed Miliband when it comes to turning the UK into a "clean energy superpower", which is a delusion (Perspective, 25 April). Mr Skidmore should consider this. The world relies upon fossil fuels for 80 percent of its energy and will be doing so for decades to come. Any CO2 given off will still get into the same atmosphere as we breathe, but it will come from our competitors who will be able to tell us what to do unless we seize the opportunity to use our own North Sea resources, which have not been used up, as he suggests. We have much left to use and we have not yet even started to put small atomic reactors in place which could be built for us by our own Rolls-Royce. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He argues that our oil is exported. It may seem strange, but we are perfectly capable of directing it to our own use and becoming self-reliant. The field newly discovered in Lincolnshire alone would power the UK for a decade! Then, we have Cambo and Rosebank fields, let alone our other fields. Wind power is a boon to China, as they build the wind turbines, but not to us, except sometimes when the wind blows. We have vast coal resources which are left totally untapped. China imports it, as we do now. What insanity. We also have huge iron ore resources. Everything has been exported. It is time we did things for ourselves instead of letting other nations benefit while we sit on the sidelines. Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh Cut energy cost In his article on First Minister John Swinney's extremism summit (Perspective, 26 April), Brian Wilson gives a quote by Anas Sarwar that states 'people across our society feel as if the economy does not work for them'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What the Scottish Labour leader failed to include in his statement is that the root cause of the current cost of living crisis in the Scottish economy is the high unit price of electricity arising from Net Zero policies . At around 28p/unit it is nearly 50 per cent higher than in 2022 prior to the start of the conflict in the Ukraine, yet gas has long since returned to the 6.8p/unit price charged at that time. Why was the main topic of the SNP summit not a plan to reduce the unit price of renewable electricity by 20p/unit to match the cost charged for gas? Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway Write to The Scotsman
