Letter: Why we should value the public sector

Full marks to Stuart Winton (Letters, 20 January) for his views on Scottish politics. But he's wrong not to care who runs our country.He is absolutely right that many so-called experts are nothing of the kind. But he overlooks the fact that politicians are our choices. So we must share responsibility for any blunders they make.

Nothing gets away from that, so we just have to sort out the issues for ourselves, even if there are some tough old chestnuts among them.

The number one chestnuts is surely the idea that the public sector doesn't create value. Look at public-sector value sold off by the Thatcher Tories for vast sums – BT, BAA, the National Grid, Scottish Power – and it's beyond dispute that the public sector created vast wealth in the past and, if not completely devastated by cuts, will do so again.

Next is another figment of Tory imagination, the debt mountain, most of which, around 80 per cent, is money we owe ourselves. And the "crippling" debt interest burden on taxpayer funds goes straight into our own work pension funds. What a huge boost for the savers and pensioners. When it comes to debt, we've never had it so good.

Another good laugh comes from the "levers of power" debate on the Scottish economy. We don't need economists to tell us that governments don't create wealth. No government ever had a firmer grip on its economy than the former Soviet bloc, an economy long since consigned to the dustbin of history.

No, it's the economies that shun the "levers of power" that have created the world's wealth, a principle which may be beyond the Scots but the Chinese, to their great credit, appear to have grasped.

In fact, in the heyday of Scottish prosperity in the 19th century, Scots entrepreneurs were left to get on with it. Meanwhile, Scottish politicians think a tax on Tesco will solve their problems.

The truth, I suspect, is that while a government may share out the wealth produced by any economy, hence the furore among those who stand to gain the most, it's totally outwith the expertise of government and its bureaucrats to create it.

Robert Veitch

Paisley Drive

Edinburgh

Your leader (11 January) rightly stated that "until recently, anyone who asked if we needed 32 local councils, 23 NHS bodies, eight police forces and more than 100 other bodies was ridiculed or ignored".

But we continue to be ignored and, therefore, in effect ridiculed and patronised, by MSPs, officials and publicly-financed bankers, despite the best efforts in Scotland's national newspaper by your commentators, leaders and informed letter writers.

What MSP has attempted to justify in your columns the decisions to increase their salaries, pensions, holidays and now "resettlement grants" (even for those of retirement age)?

What MSP or official has attempted to explain why the new Forth crossing has to be a single-purpose bridge, several times more expensive than the 1964 bridge, even after inflation, rather than a multi-purpose barrage as many of your correspondents have proposed over the past few years?

What "investment" banker has attempted to justify their pay, other than giving the easy "market rate" response, despite their public bailing-out having negated that very market, despite the nature of their so-called independent remuneration committees, despite the lack of any real investment return over the past decade, despite Lord Turner's assertion that many banking activities are "socially useless", and despite Sir Philip Hampton's admission this week, at long last, that many such banking staff are greatly overpaid?

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews