Letters: No mystery in solving who is to blame for city's slide

TO those of us who are of the opinion that Edinburgh City Council has ceased to function on a day to day basis, I would like to highlight the half mile from Easter Road to York Place as further proof.

A traffic island at the junction with East Norton Place has taken six months to install - yes, six months.

The gardens in London Road are becoming increasingly strewn with litter - so much for the green flag erected last summer. At the end of London Road there is a variety of traffic cones and barriers left for more than six weeks since potholes were repaired.

Next is the shocking state of the road and pavement outside the Playhouse.

Then there is the state of the shrubbery in Picardy Place - completely overgrown and again strewn with litter. Also in Picardy Place is the long stretch of tarmac which has been thrown down to replace the setts that used to be there, along with the Sherlock Holmes statue.

Replicate that half-mile stretch and it will become clear what state the city is in, and I haven't even mentioned the city centre or the trams! I would like to thank this Lib Dem/SNP council for carrying on the destruction started by Labour of our once beautiful city.

Ian Glennie, East Norton Place, Edinburgh

No place here for the man who ran

I WORRY what a Labour victory would say about Scotland. Iain Gray will forever be remembered as the man who ran away from protesters and hid in a sandwich shop, and the idea that he should become Scotland's figurehead fills me with dread.

Gray also has "form", having taken an unsavoury pleasure in the economic woes of countries such as Ireland and Iceland in order to run down the aspirations of his own country that some of us have, whereby we might one day take our place in the world as a "real" nation, sitting happily in the United nations between Saudi Arabia and Senegal.

Such ambitions are beyond the imagination of Mr Gray who, if he became First Minister, would simply play safe and look forward to the day when he took his seat in the House of Lords.

After all, has anyone forgotten just how dull the Scottish Parliament was under Jack McConnell, who ended up in ermine robes himself?

Sophie L Anderson, Marchmont Road, Edinburgh

Single-mum child will bear burden

A THINK-TANK states that a child growing up in a one-parent family is 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, 70 per cent more likely to become a drug addict, 50 per cent more likely to have an alcohol problem and 35 per cent likely to be unemployed as an adult.

Any person with an ounce of common sense could have told you that.

All children need to have two loving parents to have the best possible chance in life.

At one point in time the media made it cool to have one parent family.This may be all right for a middle class parent as they can ensure that their child will be well educated.

But for the working class girl, she doesn't have that luxury, with the result the child will carry the burden.

John Connor, David Henderson Court, Dunfermline, Fife

Start debate on equality for all

NICK Clegg seeks to divert our attention by raising the right of females to have equality in the right of succession to the throne.

His argument appears to be one of equality, that females should have the same right as males, which is enshrined in human rights law.

But why should we stop there? If we're serious about equality, why shouldn't there be equality of opportunity for all who live in our land to aspire to be head of state - based on merit, not birth?

And that debate needs to be how any modern democracy - founded on equality, fairness and justice - is sustainable when the head of state is selected by no qualification other than accident of birth.

Jim Taylor, The Murrays Brae, Edinburgh