Face mask compliance is slipping in the real world - Readers Letters

The First Minister and her advisors really should get out among the people of Scotland rather more often. If they did they might start to notice things which would cause them to question the current mask requirements and the wisdom of the new vaccine passport app.

Are the public still behind the requirement to wear face masks in Scotland?

For a start, they would notice a gradual rise in the proportion of people who are going about maskless. Do these people all suffer from hidden disabilities or health issues which officially exempt them from wearing masks? They might very much doubt it.

They would also notice a sizeable minority of people who wear masks improperly with the bottom of their noses peaking over the top of their masks.

As most people breathe through their noses this entirely defeats the purpose of masks. Significantly this behaviour is particularly common among shop workers who deal with the public.

If they visited England, they would also notice that most people there are going about maskless without the current English Covid figures being any worse than those in Scotland.

Very likely if they got out among the people, the First Minister and her associates would conclude that it was high time to end masks and other Covid restrictions, rather than introduce a vaccine passport app and further rules.

Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife

Cause and effect

If you have a blocked sink you do not pour more water on it in the hope of relieving the blockage. You remove the blockage.

Similarly you should not organise additional ambulances to sit outside A&E departments when the blockage is inside the A&E department, where there are many patients who would more appropriately be seen at their General Practice.

The answer is to relieve the blockage by insisting that General Practice joins the rest of the NHS staff in as normal working as possible. Treat the cause, not the effect.

Dr RG Smith, Edinburgh

Ross the Red?

I read with some amazement Douglas Ross' pronouncement that the Scottish Tories were "the party of ­working class unionists in Scotland now, because we represent their values" (Scotsman, 5 October).

I presume Mr Ross will soon denounce the decision of the previous leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, for taking a seat in the House of Lords and will campaign against the decision to make Malcolm Offord a peer in order for him to be given a government job.

Either that or I presume Douglas Ross will announce the next raft of jobs at UK offices in Scotland will be accompanied by a peerage and an attendance allowance of at least £162 per day.

Perhaps this is what Boris Johnson was referring to when he spoke about the low paid enjoying wage growth during a time of falling life expectancy.

And I seem to have missed the part where Douglas Ross suggested which trade union would now be sponsoring him.

No doubt we'll hear a further part of the Ripping Yarns another time.

William Spalding, Dunfermline, Fife

Panic buying

There is no doubt the decision by UK hauliers to take on low-wage Eastern Europeans rather than pay decent salaries to UK drivers in a job notorious for unsocial hours played its part in the fuel crisis. But of greater concern is that it underlines the fragility of our just-in-time supply chain and that puts at risk much more than fuel.

When consumers behave predictably the just-in-time supply chains are excellent, ensuring goods arrive at the right place, at the right time and in the right quantities. The design flaw is that consumers are one malign comment away from panic buyers and that will be harder to address than the passing fall-out of Brexit and Covid.

Dr John Cameron, St Andrews, Fife

Gaelic pastiche

My old friend, John Tavner gave a good response to the nonsense that prevails regarding Gaelic (Letters, 4 October). There seems to be a bit of a chasm in understanding on the part of those who are pushing the imposition of silly, made-up names to paste on to police cars, ambulances – sorry ambaileanses – public buildings and the like and reality. Gill Turner is quite right (4 October) that it was the Labour/Lib Dem coalition who introduced the legislation, so in this instance, the SNP cannot be held to blame entirely.

The problem arises when a programme is unveiled to do something good and it ends up becoming just plain silly. It’s like the need for an efficient transport system in Edinburgh which, as an idea is good. However, the resulting tram scheme which is now more expensive than the US spaceshot to the Moon, is utterly bonkers.

Similarly, spending money sticking made-up names on police cars and ambulances in a language which has no history in south-east Scotland at all and which has not been spoken in most of Lowland Scotland for centuries is rather like broadcasting the Scottish news in Old Norse, simply because it was spoken in the far north and Western Isles in the distant past. Only Icelanders would understand it. Language is a means of communication. It ceases to have any relevance when no one understands it and when vehicles and place names are translated into a pastiche which absolutely no one, Gaelic speakers included, understands.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

We’re all Cuckoo

Recent correspondence on the Gaelic translation of Penicuik will have intrigued those who live there, but the daft Poileas Alba Gaelic language survey recently undertaken and the pointless mass dual lingo signage to promote a language unspoken by 99 per cent of us suggests we’re all Cuckoolanders noo!

Andrew Kemp, Rosyth, Fife

Ferries debacle

Tim Hair, the director parachuted in to turn around the fortunes of Ferguson Marine, is certainly earning his £2,500-per-day salary. In a letter to MSPs he reports challenges to the – four years late – July 2022 projected completion date for two the ferries.

One of the problems is that equipment fitted at the outset in 2016 may have deteriorated in the intervening six years. This is a very cunning plan. It is called built-in obsolescence – creating a product with a limited lifespan thereby necessitating the purchase of replacements and keeping the company in business.

In this case, however, the ploy has been taken a step further. The products will be obsolete by the time they are built and replacements will be required immediately! It's a masterstroke.

Assuming that the current delaying tactics continue, a likely completion day may be 2026.

This means that Nicola Sturgeon can go into the next election proclaiming that for maybe another decade she will be able to promise that "hundreds of people working at Ferguson's today wouldn't be working at Ferguson's".

Colin Hamilton, Edinburgh

Finite fuel

Regular correspondent Clark Cross (Letters, 5 October) mocks renewable green energy and lauds fossil and nuclear, but what does he propose is used when finite fossil and nuclear fuel runs out? And what is his solution to the waste and pollution the latter cause?

Tim Flinn, Garvald, East Lothian

Woolly thinking

It is hard to know where to begin in response to Neil Anderson's ludicrously ambitious 12-year, seven-point plan for achieving net zero carbon (Letters, 4 October). It would certainly far exceed the Treasury's £1.3 trillion transition cost which even they concede is highly uncertain.

It appears that he wants to avoid an emissions tax by owning an electric car but fails to address their entirely misleading zero emissions smokescreen which obscures the vast environmental demands and exploitative labour entailed in their manufacture. Presumably he never intends to fly again due to his punitive air travel tax.

Mass tree planting may appear a laudable objective and can indeed provide certain environmental benefits. However no lesser a body than the Forestry Commission state the reality that "forestry can only ever play a very small part in mitigating climate change". The many thousands of hectares that Mr Anderson wants to see either reforested of left to natural regeneration are the poorer upland grass and moorlands that have for generations been the domain of hill farmers who have acted as the unsung custodians of the beautiful, diverse countryside. It is a landscape unencumbered by blanket forestry and scrub that so many urban dwellers take for granted in their weekend pursuits.

Doubtless he will be glad to witness the gradual demise of traditional livestock farming as he awaits the long process of genetic selection for methane reduction breeding values that will see the sorry remnants living out their lives in sheds lit by methane gas.

He will need to ensure, however, that a reasonable number of sheep remain to provide plenty of lovely woollen clothing to keep him warm as well as a stockpile of candles to provide some meagre comfort when his beloved intermittent renewables fail to deliver.

Kelso, Scottish Borders

Scrum off it!

How ironic! Yestarday’s front page is devoted to the Royal Mail's marking of 150 years of rugby union, yet in Monday’s “sports” section we got nine pages of football, mainly devoted to two Glasgow clubs that most people can't stand, but not a mention of Scotland's club rugby, not even just the results of the games, and league tables.

Hywel Williams, Edinburgh

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