Putting aside that this is a leaked paper from COSLA on a proposed consultation (Scotsman, 4 July), it notes that those in the highest council tax band, band H, could be forced to pay an additional £741 a year. I am not sure just over £60 a month will cause such a deterrence, with the Volvo packed and headed south. Indeed, I am not sure if the increased level of income tax paid by those with the broadest shoulders has caused such an “exodus” or deterrence to come here to date.

While the tax impact on the richest is indeed more, those parties gnashing teeth neglect to mention the free tuition enjoyed by Scottish students, with those south of the border having to pay over £9,000 a year. Prescription fees in England are also over £9 per item, while in Scotland they are free. Average water charges are also lower than those south of the border.

Better funded public services are also a key element that make somewhere an attractive place to live.

Reports suggest council tax bills in Scotland could be set for a big increase

Most Scottish taxpayers pay less income tax than their English neighbours, but for those who are better off and pay more, let us not forget the likes of lower water charges, free university fees, free prescriptions and free bus travel for pensioners and young people.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Taxing times

The editorial comment on the council tax increases article (Scotsman, 4 July) does not consider other pressures on those with higher banded properties. Many younger couples with children will have taken advantage while interest rate were at historic low levels to spend all that they can afford on high mortgages for larger housing to accommodate their children.

Those mortgages are now becoming unaffordable and adding up to another £1,000 per annum on their housing costs will be the last straw for many.

These young professionals can and will move, and not necessarily to England. The Commonwealth and the United States beckons to doctors, engineers and scientists as well as university professors.

Scotland’s wealth is not made by politicians or councillors, it is made by those professionals who are being driven away. It is very easy for government to spend other people’s money without any regard to how that money is made. These politicians will live to regret heaping unsustainable burdens on the professionals who sustain the Scottish economy.

Ken Carew, Dumfries, Dumfries & Galloway

Flawed proposal

A leaked paper from local authority umbrella body Cosla has suggested council tax increases of up to 22.5 per cent for the highest bands to boost funding. This secret report to the Scottish Government is proposing that council tax should be increased on bands E, F, G and H “to shift the burden of council tax forward to those who can afford to pay their fair share”.

But living in houses in these bands does not mean the occupants have a large income. Many will be pensioners. What about homes where there are three or four or more adults working? Yes, I know Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax was defeated but surely all homes in bands A to H where there are three or four adults all working should contribute more since they are all using council facilities?

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Churchill’s warning

Les Howson’s frustration at the West’s half-hearted support for Ukraine (Letters, 4 July) is understandable and will be shared by many.

It reflects your own editorial concerns on 30 May about a “world dominated by tyrants” but the problem is that while nuclear weapons no doubt limit the probability of full-scale war between two nuclear powers, they also effectively prevent a “conventional” conflict between them, and any greatly-increased support for Ukraine would be taken by Russia as a direct attack on them.

That problem has not been minimised by the West’s naive short-termist policies of the past 30 years which have led to the new Axis we now face led by Russia and China – and which may well tragically signal a 21st century of Churchill's “abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science”.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Case closed

Fiona Garwood’s letter (5 July) and Alastair Dalton’s article (3 July) about Edinburgh Airport are ones that any traveller through there can identify with. While Edinburgh has to rank amongst the world’s worst airports to travel through, it is also one of the worst to take people to and from.

Having to pay at least £4 for the privilege of being utterly confused about the difference between Drop Off and Pick Up is the ultimate insult. I can remember when it used to be quick, easy, simple and costless to do exactly that. Paying for a poorer service just typifies how bad the airport has become. Is there a worse airport out there? Answers on a postcard, please.

Ken Currie, Edinbugh

Forage fairly

I am a keen forager. I enjoy being out of doors as I gather wild ingredients sustainably, from nature’s larder.

A forager instinctively cooks with the season. I know the ditches and woods where I will find chanterelles, and aim to gather a few here and there, cutting the stalks with a battered knife and popping the mushrooms into a basket, not a plastic bag. Chanterelles, seaweed stock, a little oil, finely diced shallot and arborio rice and supper is ready. The main ingredient is seasonal and free.

This afternoon I watched foragers pick and pick and pick. Clearing coppices as they moved nosily through the woods. Commercial pickers, I suspect.Forage enough for your own table, no more.

Foraging is good for the soul. However, today’s experience was industrial and smacked of Dante’s fourth circle – greed.

Fiona Bird, Kirriemuir, Angus

Exit strategy

I wish to complain about the abusive electoral system which allows incompetent persons for whom few people voted to reign over a country thought to be a democracy. Harvie and Slater, get lost. Go. Don’t come back.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland

Sticking plasters

It’s hoped that First Minister Humza Yousaf’s “biggest-ever pay uplift” (Scotsman, 4 July) will bring to an end an increasingly acrimonious pay dispute with junior doctors which, if left unresolved, could result in the widespread disruption of health services in Scotland.

However, given that Health Secretary Michael Matheson had previously made a “best and final offer” which was rejected by doctors, it will be interesting to see if Mr Yousaf’s new offer will be good enough to tempt the doctors to take it and for the public to learn from where the First Minister can magically find the money.

For years NHS problems have been resolved in the short term by sticking plaster solutions, but surely the time has come for a radical rethink on how the NHS can cope with the increasing demands of the 21st century and beyond. So far no political leader has shown the courage to tackle the core problems affecting the ailing NHS and it’s now the time to take the NHS off the ventilator and restore it to life.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirling

Déja vu pay deals

Looks like Humza Yousaf’s raising that familiar white flag in response to junior doctors’ pay demands. Same old routine as the last few times, with trade union wage claims initially described as “unreasonable” by the Scottish Government before surrendering whenever strikers reject a “best and final” offer.

So despite there being “no more money” to fund these increases, extra cash is always found to satisfy rail staff, nurses, ambulance crews and teachers. Further fuel on the inflationary bonfire, which hits the least well-off hardest.

Since the SNP are incapable of standing up to industrial action, expect the police service to be next in line for the First Minister’s endless generosity after he capitulates to the BMA.

No prizes for guessing who’s ultimately paying for all this virtue-signalling in the next giveaway budget.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

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