Fraser casting stones at SNP is hypocritical - Readers' Letters

What a selective memory Murdo Fraser has (Perspective, November 25).

Does Murdo Fraser have a selective memory?

Has he forgotten that the Conservatives (and all other parties at Holyrood) supported the creation of a single police force in Scotland when it was first raised many years ago? A bit rich to be criticising it now, when his own party backed it.

As for local authority cuts, perhaps Murdo would care to explain why English local authorities are also suffering from cuts in Tory-controlled England? A report from County Councils Network found that 39 local authorities faced a funding shortfall of £2.5 billion and several are likely to declare themselves bankrupt next year.

Even before the pandemic struck, the English Local Government Association warned in 2019 that one in five councils faced bankruptcy and would be forced to impose drastic cuts. What’s the link?

If Murdo could take his head out of the sand for a minute he would see that the responsibility for this lies with his own party’s control of the UK Treasury and its obsession with imposing austerity. Rank hypocrisy to cast stones at the SNP devolved administration at Holyrood for Tory controlled Treasury decisions being passed down the line. The sooner we have our own treasury and central bank with independence, the better.

Mairianna Clyde, Merchiston Crescent, Edinburgh

Shaky ground

Boris Johnson didn't just say that devolution is a “disaster”, he also said it was Tony Blair's biggest “mistake”, which implies it should never even have happened and this remains the view of many right wing Unionists (Murdo Fraser, Perspective, November 25). Douglas Ross is on very shaky ground over local government finance as the Tories voted against Local Income Tax and as an MP, he voted in the House of Commons for an up to a 28 per cent cut in local government funding in England and, as always, this has knock on effects for Scotland. As for fiscal responsibility, Douglas Ross’s local Tory group walked away from Moray Council in 2018 after years of financial mismanagement and left it to the SNP to sort out the mess.

The creation of a more effective Police Scotland in 2014 actually saved local authorities one billion a year and this has to be factored in when comparing figures over a ten-year period. Westminster Tories reduced the resource budget of the Scottish Government by £1.5bn since 2010 and up to last year the block grant was three per cent below what it was in 2010 in real terms.

With Brexit costs likely to be far higher and longer lasting than Boris Johnson’s failure to deal with Covid properly, the Tories face the loss of seats next year and that is why Douglas Ross does not have the courage to stand in any constituency.

Fraser Grant, Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh

Indefensible view

In common with Lesley Riddoch, Emma Cockburn (Letters, November 24) thinks that defence spending, which has been ruthlessly cut year on year for decades, should not be increased by £16 billion.

Defence spending, of course, is more than just building ships and having forces to cope with flare-ups in volatile parts of the world, though that is important enough in itself. How else could we deal with the attempts by Daesh groups to take over in various parts of the world, except by having trained troops and the means to get them there, sustain, supply and defend them?

Building ships means jobs for the Clyde and suppliers throughout the UK. The same applies to expenditure on the RAF and the Army, all of whom will be instrumental in giving the population of the UK the new vaccines being developed in labs all over Britain, Europe and the USA. These ships, planes and soldiers will help our trade develop worldwide as we engage with our trading partners beyond Europe. Pirates in the Red Sea, predatory Iranians in the Gulf and drug runners in the Caribbean all need to be dealt with by the likes of the Royal Navy. We cannot defend our goods and people without them.

The expenditure will create jobs and sustain our trade. Also, in an increasingly divided world, our defence forces provide us with security, just as our forces kept Britain free during the last war when Europe was under the Nazi jackboot.

Andrew H N Gray, Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh

Complaint time?

I wonder if some people might have interpreted an underlying message in the tweet from Ian Blackford re: the English photographer. Would it have caused them to make a complaint to the Police under Humza Yousaf's new Hate Crime Bill, if that had been enacted? But at least those of us with an English parent, and English people who have made Scotland their home, will be able to show what they feel when they enter the ballot box at next May's Scottish Elections.

Elizabeth Hands, Etna Court, Armadale

Laudable move

I note that the First Minister has been quick to defend Ian Blackford over his latest gaffe (he has previous) caused by his "shoot first and think later" approach, because it's the right thing to apologise when people get something wrong. I welcome this new initiative and hope it continues, perhaps retrospectively. However, with the benefit of hindsight, in Mr Blackford's defence, I would like to congratulate him on his outstanding achievement, since he took over from Angus Robertson, in making his predecessor look diplomatic and statesmanlike.

Fraser MacGregor, Liberton Drive, Edinburgh

Short memory

Ian Blackford must have a short memory, he travelled 600 miles from Westminster to Sky at the start of the first lockdown, and he would not be able to do that without stopping. Rules for one?

Robert Fleming, Chirnside, Duns

Main movers

Remarkably, none of the recent letters on Jacobitism seem to acknowledge the English involvement in this movement which, in the early part of the 18th century, was probably greater than that in Scotland. For example, the people living within the city boundary of Newcastle came to be called "Geordies" for the simple reason that they supported the new protestant regime in contrast to the rural population of "non-jurist" Catholics still favouring the exiled Stuart regime (not one of whom, I should remind Iain Simpson, Letters, November 25, had bothered to set foot in Scotland since 1603 apart from Charles II using it as a necessary port of call on his way to London on his return from exile).

The English Jacobites were the main movers in the 1715 rebellion and, with completely inadequate support from Scotland under the dithering leadership of the Earl of Mar, were destroyed at Preston by the government forces. This hopeless cause and the consequences for its leaders were a main reason for the failure of essential recruitment of northern Englishmen to the by now even more hopeless 1745 rebellion.

(Dr) A McCormick, Kirkland Road, Terregles, Dumfries

Wake up, Labour

A “Federal Solution” to the current iniquities of the United Kingdom’s current constitutional arrangements, as espoused by Gordon Brown, Henry McLeish and others, is never going to happen and the sooner Mr Brown and other thoughtful socialist politician who have not joined the SNP realise this, the sooner they can truly commit to helping to build a fairer and more egalitarian country, independent of London rule.

The final irony for Scottish Labour would be for the Conservative Party in Scotland to split (possibly foreshadowed in the sudden resignation from the party by Michelle Ballantyne) and form an Independent Scottish Conservative Party supporting home rule before the Labour Party in Scotland got its act together and rose above “SNP-Bad” (rejecting the anti-independence agenda of Richard Leonard and political dinosaurs such as James Kelly, Jackie Baillie and Iain Gray) to form an Independent Scottish Labour Party genuinely reflecting the enlightened ambitions of Keir Hardie.

The tide is not turning, it has already turned, and if the Labour Party in Scotland does not wake up to the new political reality that the majority of the population in Scotland now reject London rule, as epitomised by Boris Johnson and his woefully incompetent Cabinet of Brexit disciples, then another party will emerge to grasp the socialist mantle of representing those with left-of-centre views beyond those represented by the perhaps more centrist SNP of an independent Scotland.

Stan Grodynski, Gosford Road, Longniddry

Cut wasted aid

It is widely expected that Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce that the foreign aid budget will be slashed and legislation will be introduced to reduce the budget for several years, or even permanently (your report, November 25 ). For decades large parts of the foreign aid budget has been squandered in countries that hate us and in countries where the rulers have diverted it to their Swiss bank accounts.

China and India have space programmes so why are we giving them foreign aid? China has just launched a mission to the moon to bring back lunar samples. China, the world's second biggest economy was given £81 million of UK taxpayers' cash.

China was even given money for flood prevention, yet UK towns and cities suffered one of the worst years of flooding on record because budget restrictions meant flood defences were not built and rivers were not dredged and drains kept clear.

Reducing foreign aid is a good first step, reducing the vast number of civil servants and departments involved in giving away our money should be the next step.

Clark Cross, Springfield Road, Linlithgow

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