Readers' Letters: Fight to keep our precious libraries open

Libraries have long been considered places used by the middle and upper classes of society (Dani Garavelli, 29 August).

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is a voracious reader who would surely mourn the loss of libraries (Picture: Robert Perry - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

This could not be further from the truth. While many use the facilities for educational and social reasons, for a huge number of individuals this is their only access to the internet and their avenue and contact to much-needed local and social services. I urge everyone who uses libraries to write to their local and national political representatives for support and funding of this essential service which has no social or economic divides.

Paul Wilson, Prestwick, South Ayrshire

On the threshold

Surely the point of having at least a 60 per cent threshold for a referendum is to avoid the squabbles that have plagued the Brexit and Scexit referendum results.

A four per cent margin in the former has fuelled much of the anger and nationalists refuse to accept the ten per cent margin of the latter. Nobody questioned the 1999 devolution result, which was 74 per cent Yes. To achieve that, however, the SNP/Greens would require 2.7 million of the 3.6m votes cast in 2014. They only got 1.6m votes in in 2014 and 1.3m in May this year. Perhaps that's why Nicola Sturgeon refuses to take up the challenge.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven

Extend jag passport

I agree with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the introduction of the vaccination passports for nightclubs and large gatherings of people in Scotland but it should be extended to all licensed premises.

This would make the entertainment and licensed trade business so much safer for people to use and encourage the remaining 450,000 younger people in Scotland to get their jabs and make the whole of Scotland a safer place against the Covid- 19 virus.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen

Pay to protest

Police Scotland has vowed to put human rights at the centre of how it handles COP26 protests. They would be better employed protecting the human rights of the general public. The Extinction Rebellion protests in London cost the Metropolitan Police £50 million. How much will it cost for COP26 in Glasgow in November?

Demonstrators should be made to pay to demonstrate, preferably in a field where they cannot do damage or vandalism to people's property. Politicians, police and the courts are frightened to act firmly. Time for the public to demonstrate against them and the demonstrators.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

What about women?

Former SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, in the midst of the ongoing Kabul carnage, is perhaps trying to reassure and comfort everyone by telling us that the Taliban are “...essentially the Muslim nationalists of Afghanistan”.

Maybe we should all be grateful for her clarification and thank her for clearing that misunderstanding up.

However, the one thing she left out, the elephant in the room, was any mention about the fate of the women left behind in Afghanistan to deal with what Ms Ahmed-Sheikh describes as the new “Muslim nationalist” masters of the country. The women do not even get a mention in the statement from the once Women and Equalities convenor of the SNP.

Alexander McKay. Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

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