Readers' Letters: Brexit has put Britain in disastrous economic straits

Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross’s “economic strategy” (your report, 30 August) shows he doesn’t understand the limitations of devolution or the UK’s disastrous economic position since Brexit.

Reader is unconvinced of Douglas Ross's grasp of economic reality (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

With economic growth at 3.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Ireland recorded the highest level per capita among the 38 OECD countries in the second quarter of this year, compared to only 0.20 per cent in the UK.

Denmark’s wealth per head is almost twice that of Scotland’s and, thanks to government investment, is the world’s leader in manufacturing wind turbines, while Norway is even wealthier as, unlike the UK, the government used some of its oil revenues to modernise its shipyards.

It is now a world leader in building cruise liners and Norway has already established a hydrogen fuel cell-powered ferry service, but Scotland doesn’t even have an electrolyser manufacturer to convert our excess water and electricity into hydrogen and oxygen, or a fuel cell manufacturer to power this fast-growing renewable energy source.

Scotland does not have the fiscal powers to match our prosperous independent Nordic neighbours or Ireland while the UK’s support for renewable energy is paltry compared to Germany’s £50 billion next year.

Denmark, Norway and Ireland all enjoy a higher standard of living than in the UK while Denmark, with much higher personal taxes, has GDP growth running at 1.7 per cent, around eight times better than in the UK. These small nations provide better state pensions and benefits, with far fewer living in poverty and resultant fewer drug- and alcohol-related deaths compared to the UK, never mind Scotland.

With Westminster’s continuity candidate, Keir Starmer’s, latest U-turn on a wealth tax for the super-rich and his refusing to have the UK rejoin the EU, there is no prospect of higher living standards or significant economic growth within the UK.

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh

Robbed blind

Douglas Ross giving economic advice to Scotland is lunacy. We’d be crazy to let the Tories continue their wrecking ball policies by electing even more of them in Scotland. This is the party that brought us over a decade of austerity that has gutted public services, increased poverty, exacerbated inequality and ejected us from the world’s largest single market, making the UK the economic basket case it is today.

Sadly, Labour won’t act differently since it has adopted the same execrable policies. And both parties are adamantly opposed to Scottish self-determination because they know that, freed from the UK’s shackles, we would prosper, just like our independent Nordic neighbours.The UK needs Scotland’s resources and revenues. We’ve not only propped up the UK economy since North Sea oil was discovered, but have been doing so for over 120 years.

From 1900-1921 the UK government produced accounts, Revenue and Expenditure for England (including Wales), Scotland and Ireland. Publication ceased when Ireland became independent. During this period, Scotland provided the UK Treasury with £762.3 million and received back just £211 m, or 27.7 per cent. Converted from 1911 prices, this is equivalent to £2.5 billion a year, more than the £1.5bn oil-rich Scotland sent to Westminster between 1979-97.

Ross and the UK establishment are keen to keep Scots in the dark about their wealth and how it is keeping a sinking UK afloat. It’s time we opened our eyes because we’re being robbed blind.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh

Flexible fiends

May I comment on Hugh Kerr’s letter (30 August) and his reference to the use of “variable pricing” by the Edinburgh International Festival? It would surprise me if many of your readers are aware of the full extent of this in practice.

Last Thursday I attended the Usher Hall for a performance of Beethoven’s 9th. As you would expect, the concert was a sell-out. My wife had bought two tickets, for me and a friend. The friend, unfortunately, pulled out about ten days prior. My wife approached the Box Office. Instead of being offered a refund (conditional on a successful resale), she was invited to make a donation of the ticket price. She declined, and through a contact was able to get her £44.50 back.

At the concert on the evening, I was delighted to see that the ticket had indeed been resold, but was flabbergasted when the lady in the seat told me she had been charged £79, an increase of over 77 per cent on the advertised rate.

Like Mr Kerr, I would offer my congratulations to new Festival director Nicola Benedetti; however, is she aware of her organisation’s practice, one which would bring a smile to the worst of ticket touts?

Tom Johnston, Edinburgh

Blame Thatcher

Malcolm Parkin believes that today's drug problem "has nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher" (Letters, 29 August). So, who's to blame? Obviously, those who take drugs must be top of the list. But our drug problem may be much more nuanced than Mr Parkin cares to suggest.

Before she stood down as Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon came in for some harsh criticism from the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems when Scotland's drug-related deaths hit record highs. Job done then... well, not quite! Scotland has had a drug problem long before Ms Sturgeon came to the fore. It is often said that people are free to make their own choices and nobody forces them to take drugs.

However, statistics always show that making right or wrong choices is often influenced by a lack of properly paid jobs, which unarguably means drug abuse is more prevalent in socially deprived areas.

So, what's this to do with Mrs. T? When Mrs Thatcher, supported by Labour and the Lib Dems, started to sell off our industrial sector and workers were tossed on the scrapheap, many went on benefits and stayed on them. Many of their offspring followed suit rather than take exploitative jobs like their young counterparts who could be subsidised by better-off parents.

This system has carried on for generations and generations. Readers may remember the Tories' Youth Training Scheme whereby unsubsidised young workers were paid a pittance, which hardly qualified them as willing and proud members of the working class.

On top of the carnage inflicted by Margaret Thatcher to our manufacturing sector by her neo-liberally motivated ideology which was quietly supported by Labour and the Lib Dems, public services were privatised to the detriment of workers and users, resulting in the devastation in many working class areas which is now a big part of the drug culture that pervades in many of these areas, which are now classed as socially deprived. Unfortunately the SNP has inherited these problems and seems incapable of finding solutions without cross party support.

Jack Fraser, Musselburgh, East Lothian

Hotel beware

It’s wonderful that Gleneagles has won a new accolade for outstanding service (your report, 29 August). The danger now is that someone in the Home Office will be calculating just how many asylum seekers they can cram into the rooms, and how many portacabins they can squeeze onto the beautiful lawns.

After all, that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with the Stradey Park Hotel, the most successful hotel in its part of Wales.

Ian McNicholas, Waunlwyd, Ebbw Vale

May or May not

Theresa May's forthcoming new book – ironically entitled The Abuse Of Power – sees her blaming the failings of her premiership on everyone but herself. Instead, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Corbyn, Laura Kuenssberg and even John Bercow were responsible for her cunning plans going The Full Baldrick.Clearly, time has afforded her the opportunity for dispassionate reflection and humility rather than falling to the tendentious visions of self-pity and ego, and I for one look forward to reading her full censure of the departmental ineptitudes she lays at the paws of Larry the cat.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Sounds useless

Using hydrophones, a sort of passive sonar, in a loch is a fool's errand as it will pick up a lot of noise from traffic on the loch (“Nessie hunters hear 'four distinctive noises',” 28 August).

As for never being tried before, hydrophones have been deployed by several different teams from 1970 onwards. They will not detect Nessie as she does not exist. Apart from a few hoaxes, reports are all misperceptions of one sort or another, notably boat wakes.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

Tripe triumph

I was delighted to read Nigel Southworth’s Passions article in praise of tripe (29 August). I have been a tripe eater all my life, starting as a result of my father’s GP suggesting it as an easily digestible food to counter the effects of his stomach ulcer.

I eat it in all the forms Nigel mentions, plus in winter I eat it hot, cooked in milk with onions. I wholeheartedly agree that Tripe a la Mode de Caen, which is sold by my local butcher in France, is the prince of tripe dishes.

Sourcing tripe in Scotland is a problem, we have to go to Newcastle for supplies. That’s a great pity because it is an inexpensive nutritious food that, if people overcame their prejudices, could provide a useful addition to their diet.

John Bromhall, Balerno, Edinburgh

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