Readers' letters: Alex Salmond’s chutzpah knows no bounds

For someone with no public office and no mandate, Alex Salmond talks up himself and his Alba party as if they were of great moment. Salmond’s new show Scotland Speaks, available on social media platforms, is typical of his chutzpah. He doesn’t represent “Scotland” in any measurable sense. His party has failed to win so much as a local council seat, and its two MPs were elected as SNP MPs and then defected to Alba.

Now we are told that Salmond is to address “the Centre for UN Studies on “the Road to Scottish Independence” (what else?). Doesn’t that sound impressive? But this centre isn’t a part of the United Nations. It is a research centre at the "independent” (aka private) University of Buckingham, not the kind of institution the SNP would wish to be associated with.

Full marks to Alba for its propaganda effort, elevating Salmond to the status of a national figure (which, of course he used to be, but is no more). But the SNP has rebuffed its attempts to create a united separatist front for forthcoming elections, no doubt in the hope that the renegade MPs Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey can have their seats saved through a pact.

I think we can be confident that all the talking up will count for naught, and that after the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, followed by a general election, Alba will emerge without a parliamentary representative. How sad. What a shame. Never mind.

Alex Salmond pictured in April 2021at the launch of the Alba Party manifesto for the Scottish Parliament election the following month (Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty)

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Biting the hand

John McLellan’s article and Elizabeth Hands’ letter (Scotsman, 15 August) make good points about the current debate over festival sponsorship.

History shows us that sponsorship has always been a crucial element in the arts. Where would we be without the Tate (sugar) investment in the London galleries, to name just one example.

We all know the damage fossil fuels are doing to our planet. By all means protest, withdraw or walk out of events. Maybe you should have checked the sponsorship before accepting the invitation to appear. That would avoid disappointing hundreds of young people plus saving Edinburgh International Book Festival staff a lot of extra work.

Our enjoyment of the arts will be terminally damaged and all our lives less enriched if sponsorship of the arts and festivals is withdrawn. The Edinburgh International Book Festival works all year round to promote reading in schools and in many communities where books are less accessible.

Authors will lose the opportunity to promote and sell their books and enter for prestigious awards funded by these sponsors.

Fiona Garwood, Edinburgh

Promises, promises

Keir Starmer will make any promise, it seems, in order to garner a vote, even if it results in a seemingly inevitable U-turn. This week it was our turn in Scotland – the “beating heart of a new Britain” (Scotsman, 15 August), according to whatever side of the bed he got out that morning.

I do hope that he is right but I suspect he is simply the epitome of the politician that will say anything to get elected. Tomorrow it will be the moon on a stick – until he U-turns on that.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

A new Scotland

Sir Keir Starmer has said that if Labour win the general election, we will see a new Scotland. Are we going to be England?

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Highlands vision

When Sir Keith Starmer outlined his hopes to "marvel at the continued allure of the Scottish Highlands” (Scotsman, 15 August) he was obviously unaware that the SNP plans to increase the wind farm capacity in Scotland to around 60GW which, with the requisite plethora of super-sized pylons, will desecrate the Flow Country of the North to provide energy for those living in the Central Belt, meaning the Labour leader will never fulfill such a vision.

In addition, as 60GW of windmills produce no energy if the wind fails to blow, why has he failed to challenge Humza Yousaf over the cost of a 25GW back-up generation system? Surely in a cost-of-living crisis one system should suffice to keep the lights on in Scotland, especially when the SNP have never explained why they need 60GW of windmills to meet a maximum system of about 20GW.

There is also a problem that, as the projected capacity of the interconnectors to England will only transfer 10GW, there is a deafening silence over the bill for Constraint Payments. Has the Labour leader agreed that English consumers will underwrite the bill for such costs?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Old fools and fuels

Doubtless the eco-Luddites of Scotland Against Spin squealed with glee at the news a wind turbine offshore of Norfolk caught fire and are sharpening their best crayons to declare this as “final” proof that wind power is “dangerous”.

After all, we call know that nuclear power is far safer. Just ask the residents of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Kyshtym, Tokaimura, etc.

Never mind, there’s always lovely fossil fuels: safe as houses, as the residents of Aberfan, Benxihu, Soma, Sorange, Kaohsiung, Guadalajara, etc will confirm – not to mention those 12,000 happy customers in London 1952 who didn’t mind at all a bit of sulphur dioxide asphyxiation with their nutty slack.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Assisted suicide

Christine Jardine refers in her column to the claim by Friends at the End (FATE) that 25 Scots have travelled to Switzerland to end their lives through assisted suicide (Scotsman, 14 August). This averages at just over one person per year over the 20 years from 2002 to 2022 and shows that there is little real demand in Scotland for legalising assisted suicide.

As Scotland has a roughly ten per cent of the UK population, proportionately there should have been around 50 Scots travelling to Switzerland for an assisted suicide death over that 20-year period. However, Scots make up, at most, only 4.7 per cent of assisted suicide deaths by UK nationals.

This is unsurprising as we retain a sense of community spirit in Scotland where we recognise that encouraging the poor or vulnerable to end their lives by suicide is detrimental for those involved and also for the whole of society.

Increasingly, we are hearing appalling stories from Canada of those who are poor or disadvantaged being offered medical assistance in dying rather than proper health or social care. In the case of Roger Foley he was offered euthanasia whilst being told his care was costing over Can$1,500 a day.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia corrupt the healthcare system, putting pressure on people to end their lives so as not to be a burden on family, friends or care services. If Scotland were to have a Swiss-type assisted suicide system, hundreds of people a year would be dying prematurely owing to financial or other pressures or because of undiagnosed or untreated clinical depression. With a Canadian-type system, there would be thousands of such deaths.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive, Care Not Killing, Glasgow

Uncouth Yousaf

There is something unedifying about Humza Yousaf proclaiming that he is prepared to “p*** off some people” by making choices on big issues (Scotsman, 16 August).

He may be trying to exude bravado and manifest a steely confidence which isn’t there but at the end of the day it may not matter. He increasingly seems to be First Minister in name only with de facto FM, Patrick Harvie, calling the shots.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirling

Green influence

The Green Party’s influence in decision-making in the Scottish political scene has become farcical. Quite simply this is because none of their MSPs are in any way truly representative of the electorate. Their style in administration can only be described as maverick, and therefore is only acceptable to a small minority of people.

By means of the Additional Member System, in Glasgow North constituency, for instance, the Labour Party candidate got 11,537 votes in the Scottish Parliamentary elections, whilst Patrick Harvie got only 3,251 votes (nine per cent), but became an MSP.

Similarly in Edinburgh Northern/Leith constituency the Labour Party candidate got 10,874 votes at the same elections, whilst Lorna Slater got only 6,116 votes, but also became an MSP.

Both Harvie and Slater became MSPs because of the type of electoral system within the Scottish Parliament, not because they were selected by the people. And in their case this is simply not acceptable because of the effects of their extreme approach to so many aspects of people’s lives – and livelihoods.

The only consolation will be that once the SNP have been drummed out of government, the aforesaid Greens must surely disappear into oblivion.

Robert I G Scott, Ceres, Fife

Brought to book

Lots of suggestions going around as to what the title of Nicola's memoir should be. The world of literature may be of help in suggestions – from American writers, how about Tom Wolfe and his Bonfire of the Vanities? How about our own Evelyn Waugh, and his Decline and Fall? The possibilities are endless.

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

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