Readers' Letters: May elections are nothing to do with Johnson

Nicola Sturgeon is asking people to vote for the SNP in the local authority elections to “Send Boris a message”, but Boris Johnson is not responsible for your bins, your education, your planning, your parks, your verges, your potholes, your schools, your swimming pools, your libraries, your street lights, your social housing, your town halls, your council tax, your business rates or your social care.

The councillors you may elect are responsible for these things. Ms Sturgeon herself has no role in these things either, although she does consistently ensure that local government is poorly funded, and this makes their job much more difficult.

The choices you make on 5 May will determine the services you receive for the next five years. Only the people whose names are on the ballot paper are relevant. The rest, including Ms Sturgeon and Mr Johnson, are not. It is none of their business. The SNP message is as misleading as the big yellow bus showing a picture of Ms Sturgeon from ten years ago. They no longer have much to offer, so are falling back on old messages and images, none of which reflect reality today.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Nicola Sturgeon's campaign bus will tour Scotland in the 21 days before the local elections (Picture: Jane Barlow - Pool/Getty Images)

Misleading

I have to agree with the Scotsman editorial of 16 April, saying the local election should be about just that, referring to the SNP bus slogan, “Send Boris a message”. Typical electioneering, not just from the SNP, and it will probably work.

The trouble is, Boris is not standing in the local elections, and by deflecting the message on to national issues, it takes the focus away from the SNP’s poor record on local government, ie the shortage of funding. As I say, the tactic will probably work, then the SNP, if they do well, will claim a mandate for another referendum, Depressing!

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Bad job

In a Scotland on Sunday interview Nicola Sturgeon refused to apologise to islanders over the ferries issue. She chooses instead to “regret” the fiasco before hastily emphasising she does not regret “saving the shipyard”. The number of jobs claimed to be saved has now miraculously increased from 300 to 400 – a claim which does not accord with the evidence. Reports from the Scottish Government's Strategic Commercial Interventions Division and from Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd for a 14-week period at the end of 2021 show that the number working on one hull oscillated between 25 and 60, while the number for the other was in the 60s; only in four of these weeks did the number working on each top 100.

Moreover, we need to know how many of these were Scottish workers. Tim Hair, the expert being paid nearly £3,000 a day to "turn around" the situation, frequently bemoaned the fact he could not get enough local workers and was having to import them from places such as Romania. Does Ms Sturgeon “regret” throwing £300 million of taxpayers money not at "saving" Scottish jobs but to give employment to foreign workers?

But surely her most outrageous claim in this interview is that the Scottish Government has been “fully transparent” on this issue! It is still not clear who finally signed off the contract despite Ms Sturgeon's weaselly attempt to pin the blame on Derek Mackay. And more importantly, who decided – and why – to ignore the advice of experts and waive a refund guarantee clause, a “mandatory” provision to protect Scottish taxpayers from catastrophic losses? Not even the Auditor General has been able to penetrate the SNP culture of secrecy to to winkle out these crucial pieces of information. Never mind sending a message to Boris – send one to this incompetent and secretive cabal which is anything but stronger for Scotland.

Colin Hamilton, Edinburgh

Ferry failure

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars has commented on record that the SNP handling of the ferry fiasco has made our once leading shipbuilding industry the “laughing stock of the world”. Embarrassment piles on embarrassment on top of eye-watering incompetence and lack of leadership on an industrial scale.

Bear in mind that this is the party and leaders who continually cry out for more control of the economic levers. All I can say is that they show such breathtaking lack of basic ability, the very thought of them having more powers than they already have – and they had total decision making control of the ferry fiasco – should send shudders down the spines of those who care about Scotland and its future.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Just one thing

John McLellan's article, “Johnson needs to do the right thing” (Perspective, 16 April) concludes by claiming that “the right thing is for Mr. Johnson to depart”. I disagree. He is a fallible leader, as so many of our Prime Ministers have been and present leaders of opposition parties are.

His supporters say that "he gets the big things right", e.g. Ukraine but, for me, the big thing that he appears to be getting right is that he is the only party leader, and one of the very few MPs and MSPs, who is prepared to define what a woman is. Mr Johnson said in the Commons on 22 March, "When it comes to distinguishing between a man and a woman, the basic facts of biology remain overwhelmingly important" and went on to say that trans people should be treated with the maximum possible generosity and respect. For that alone, I will vote Conservative in both local and national elections.