Readers' Letters: Don't call us Nimbys, we're fighting for Scotland
It is difficult to pick up a paper – national or local – these days without reading that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister wish to stop the Nimby lobby and get building.
As someone who is living through the planning process of new monster 400kV Overhead Lines (OHL) passing within 180 yards of my front door I do care a lot – but not as the PM might think. I, like him, understand the need for greener power. But I question what he describes as his “backyard”? My – and hundreds of others affected – backyard happens to include a national monument, the beautiful Caterthun Bronze Age forts, thousands of acres of ancient and native woodland and every element of biodiversity this national and local government professes to want to protect.
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Hide AdHere in the Angus glens we are a close-knit community and as such will fight to protect our backyard. We will fight for the beauty of the Scottish Highlands, which generate much-needed tourism and income. Sir Keir Starmer needs to understand that a whole community, a fragile ecosystem and local economy is affected by this gigantic 400kV OHL snaking through the tranquil Angus countryside.


I challenge Sir Keir to come and visit us here in the heart of Scotland. It is very easy to be glib and say we are Nimbys. It is not my backyard you are ruining – it is Scotland’s.
Edward Troughton, Brechin, Angus
Senseless
The numbers turning up in Whitehall in protest at the farmers’ Inheritance Tax row shows Labour has vastly underestimated the number of farmers affected. Good government should not make these mistakes but if it does then swift remedial action is required. Labour appear unmoved. This is not good government, it is more akin to dictatorial rule.
This is a sad reflection on the state of politics both in the UK and even here in Scotland where the SNP also likes to subject the population to unpopular polices. Where has all the common sense gone?
Gerald Edwards, Glasgow
Wrong prescription
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Hide AdI suspect anyone who has had a heart attack or needs cancer chemotherapy or has broken their hip is grateful that Atlee's government prescribed the “bitter bill of Socialism” (Gordon Watson, Letters,12 December) and set up the NHS, because their health problems are not exacerbated by worries about paying for their treatment. One of the top causes of bankruptcy in the US is paying for healthcare. Freedom from worry exemplifies the mission of the NHS: to provide healthcare to all comers irrespective of ability to pay, one that has been delivered millions of times, refuting Mr Watson's view that the NHS “set off with little idea where it was going and never got where it aimed to be”.
As for his scepticism about NHS underfunding, by any measure, it is. Not only do we spend less on healthcare than all other big European countries, and massively less than the US, where health outcomes are poorer than ours, but the Treasury principle of spending our taxes begrudgingly means the NHS has to control the level of its activity by rationing, in other words, waiting lists.
As for the remedy of its problems being a marriage with the private sector, who builds its hospitals and manufactures its scanners, drip sets, PPE and medicines? As HL Mencken said, “for every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong”.
Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen
Overburdened
Gordon Watson asserts that the NHS has been flawed from the outset and that only restructuring along business lines can save it.
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Hide AdHaving worked in NHS hospitals for 40 years I beg to differ. Firstly, the current intense pressures reflect ever-increasing demand, due to the increased number of older people who inevitably eventually fall ill. At its inception the NHS dealt commonly with younger patients, often with single reversible illnesses, particularly infections. Now the average inpatient is much older (this is what success delivers) but suffers from several different interacting chronic illnesses, making rehabilitation and discharge much harder.
We have heard before, from Thatcher’s government, that all the NHS needs is to be reorganised under business models. While private care can work well for predictable, defined procedures such as hip replacements, it has no place in managing the many frail patients with complex co-morbidities and carries the risk that “cheapest must be best” ideas inform care planning, where the opposite is often true.
Anyone who has interacted recently with acute NHS hospitals will know that inefficiency is commonplace, but the causes are not lack of business skills. In an overburdened system, two common issues drive much of the inefficiency. Firstly, extreme demand on emergency services routinely spills into beds which are needed to deliver planned services such as elective surgery, causing cancellations.
Secondly, large numbers of acute beds are occupied by frail patients whose acute illness has been treated but who cannot be discharged for want of a care package, with no-one available to deliver it. This prevents the use of acute beds for emergency admissions, leading directly to ambulance queues and unnecessary harm through delays. Working to strictly separate acute and elective work, ideally at different sites, and investing in supported discharge through augmented social care would do far more to help the NHS to manage rising demand than another politically driven imposition of business models or the misguided diversion of precious funding into the private sector.
(Dr) J Alastair Innes, Edinburgh
No answers
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Hide AdIt is strange that the Scottish Budget made no reference as to how the SNP propose to repay the £900 billion cost of their net zero targets when even covering the annual debt interest will incur a £36bn bill, which is 50 per cent more than the NHS budget!
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway
French lesser
So desperate is Stan Grodynski to disparage the UK that he wrongly claims that the UK’s government debt is almost ten times higher than that of France (Letters, 11 December).
In fact, at the end of October 2024, the UK’s government debt was 97.5 per cent of GDP while France’s was 110.6 per cent. France’s figure had not changed since 2023, whereas the UK’s had improved from 101 per cent.
Neither country is a shining example – although others, such as Japan and Greece, are significantly worse. But let’s not allow hostility to the UK to cloud the fact that the UK is somewhat better than France in this respect.
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh
Blame Westminster
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Hide AdKeith Howell (Letters, 10 December) fails to recognise the limitations of the devolution settlement whereby the Scottish Government gets very short notice of the following year’s block grant settlement and is required to balance the books every year, but is subject to mid-year external fiscal events. In exchange for a more progressive tax system, we in Scotland enjoy far better public services than elsewhere in the UK.
On independence papers spending, Scotland's taxpayers have paid for the cost of the UK No 10 Union unit plus a bloated Scotland Office with its communications staff tripling and, under Ian Murray, expanding its territory over devolved matters.
The EY ITEM Club think-tank reports that last year Scotland won 142 foreign direct investment projects, a 12.7 per cent rise on the previous year and double the UK increase. It is also the fifth consecutive year of increase – Scotland, under the SNP, has become the most attractive place for foreign investment outside London and the South East of England – in no small part due to the Scottish Government’s “pretendy embassies”.
The £4.9 billion extra budget funding for Scotland is welcome but much of it will be swallowed up to meet public sector pay rises, due to high UK inflation. By way of context, analysis by the House of Commons Library in July showed that Scotland’s block grant was worth £6.4bn less than it was in 2020/21.
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Hide AdWhen Westminster cut the Winter Fuel Payment it cut the Scottish budget by £160 million and Holyrood faces a £379m shortfall from London to meet the costs of Labour’s National Insurance hike. The £4.9bn is not magic money from Labour, as Scotland’s taxpayers and businesses pay for it through National Insurance, VAT and all the other taxes that go to Westminster.
Mary Thomas, Edinburgh
Foul Play
With around a million dogs in Scotland the problem of fouling has become acute. I see this on social media and for myself on the pavements on my regular walking route. Sadly, many walk through the mess in dark mornings and evenings.
The cost of living crisis has come with increased dog ownership and with the average spend an estimated £3,000 a year one wonders what, if anything, owners are doing without. While the vast majority are responsible owners, more are breaking the law. A recent BBC report found no evidence that the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2004 has made any difference. The number of dogs is out of control and with increased dog-related crime, including more deaths and injuries, the government should reinstate a licensing scheme.
As Christmas gifts for dogs are in vogue, there is nothing more practical than a good scooper.
Neil Anderson, Edinburgh
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