Readers' Letters: Holiday advice ignores mental health needs

The First Minister’s warning to Scots not to book an Easter holiday even within this country is deeply depressing and probably sounds the death-knell of what remains of our hospitality industry.

Nicola Sturgeon doesn't want people in Scotland to book breaks

That would bad enough in itself but the revenues from hospitality are crucial to Scotland’s fiscal viability.

Furthermore, such an announcement at a time when many are struggling to maintain mental health betrays an unsubtle approach to the issue and is getting close to callous. It is not unreasonable to say that many people have little or nothing to look forward to and Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement piles more weight on the negative side of the scales.

The point here is that health isn’t exclusively defined by management of the pandemic; that is one important element, not a trump card, despite epidemiologists thinking otherwise. Surely there must be the prospect of a more nuanced approach, because if the FM sticks to these guns public trust and cooperation is likely just to fade away.

R A Wallace, Standalane, Kincardine

Stay in, except…

It puzzles me, after watching Tuesday’s daily briefing on lockdown continuing with no specific date for easing the restrictions or planning anything as daring as a staycation, that several times an advert for May 6 Scottish Elections appeared on the telly.

I might just Stay at Home with my mask on and two metres apart from anything that moves in my house, as we are interminably told to do.

Gillian Cornelius, Glendevon Place, Edinburgh

Odds and sods

Three weeks after my first jab I am now 60 per cent safe from Covid. In two months after my second I will be 90 per cent safe. Nice.

However if the airline tells me 'Sir, this plane has a 90 per cent safe chance of arriving safely,' I doubt I'd risk it.

Tim Flinn, Garvald, East Lothian

A Boris bow

I was delighted to receive my vaccine at the end of last week and expressed my gratitude to all of the auxiliary and medical staff for the outstanding job they are doing. None of them shared their newspaper reading habits with me but perhaps, like me, were wishing that the Scottish Government had had mass centres fully operational at an earlier date and installed from the outset a more efficient system for distribution of the vaccine.

I confess I wish I were more magnanimous and found it easier to acknowledge the role of certain politicians. One thing Boris Johnson has got right was to set up a task force as early as last February charged with sourcing, evaluating and procuring hundreds of millions of doses of various vaccines for distribution to all parts of the UK. Fortunately he also rejected SNP proposals in July that we should work with our "EU partners" in procuring supplies which would have left hundreds of thousands of Scots who have already been vaccinated still on the waiting list. I am sure we can all suppress our political leanings and allow Mr Johnson – on this one issue – to take a bow.

Colin Hamilton, Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh

Jag and Gill

Did I spot a chink in the armour of your most ardent letter writing supporter of the SNP party?

In today’s polemic from Gill Turner (Letters, February 17) she claims to have recently received her first Covid jab. My understanding is that Scots have jags while only English have jabs.

Is she indeed a clandestine convert from south of the porridge line?

(Dr) S R Wild, Alnwickhill Road, Edinburgh

An ill wind

It is no surprise that Banks Renewables has chosen the New Cumnock area of East Ayrshire to site the tallest wind turbines in the world. (Scotsman, February 16). They will expect any bid for planning permission to be successful in an area which still suffers the scars from open cast mining and has now been further degraded by multiple wind farm developments. Combine that with elected members who are known for ignoring the expert advice given by their Planning Officers, in the belief that the creation of jobs is paramount and any developer is surely on to a winner..

Perhaps it is time elected members checked how many full-time permanent local jobs are actually created by wind farms; very few, in truth.

Although this application will be decided by Scottish Ministers, East Ayrshire Council will be consulted and an objection from them is essential if there is any chance of stopping this monstrous scheme which will affect the lives of more people and wildlife. All in the pursuit of energy which is far from clean or green.

Aileen Jackson, Knockglass, Uplawmoor

Big dream

Lately, unionists have used your opinion and letters columns to predict all sorts of mayhem should a second Scottish independence referendum become a reality. They are the needlessly fearful, seeking to convince us that we cannot manage our own affairs. If ever there was a “Project fear” it would be these. In the process they tend to overlook two issues: First, a referendum is the democratic way of establishing whether the people of Scotland wants independence. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Westminster system is fundamentally biased against Scotland setting its own agenda. Therefore, I with many others, want to express our fundamental and democratic right to set our own agenda, decide our affairs, and be the builders of our future.

Second, the unionists tend to paint the SNP into the role of the government in an independent Scotland. The whole point of independence is that the Scottish people will choose their own government, not one decided in England. It will not necessarily be an SNP administration, so again, Project Fear paints a one-sided picture.

I do not believe independence will be a walk in the park, but it will be the kind of walk that we choose for ourselves. Naturally, within the confines of all that restricts sovereign states.

History teaches us that by staying in the UK we cannot as a nation dream of new directions. With independence we will be free to follow any examples and to imagine something different – of our own choosing.

Peter Glissov, Sydney Terrace, Edinburgh

Eye-opening?

The list of inquiries and reports to be published into all aspects of this inept and ineffective Scottish Government grows ever longer, highlighting the litany of failures borne by the people of Scotland.

We have an Education report to be published but, helpfully to the SNP, not until after the Scottish Election; a Care Home inquiry which will helpfully not start until after the pandemic; the Salmond inquiry which looks more and more like a cover-up; and the Hamilton inquiry looking at potential Ministerial Code breaches.

This catalogue of failure and error is topped off by the report issued yesterday by the Auditor General for Scotland highlighting the failures to implement the appropriate pandemic planning over the last five years across care home capacity or the PPE requirements. The report – and it is an independent report – damningly says that the Scottish Government “could have been better prepared” to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Bluntly, this lack of preparedness has cost many lives. Perhaps now those with the blinkered view that The First Minister can do no wrong will open their eyes a little wider and realise that all is not milk and honey under this First Minister and her divisive, divided and deficient administration.

Richard Allison, Braehead Loan, Edinburgh

Blame rUK

The Audit Scotland report criticises the Scottish Government’s lack of pandemic readiness in PPE procurement and social care capacity (your report, February 17). What it doesn’t reveal is that the UK government cancelled a joint procurement process, leaving emergency pandemic supplies depleted and dependent on extending expiry dates.

Furthermore, pandemic response strategy was reserved until March 26 2020. The Scottish Government, under pressure from the UK government, the mainstream media and opposition parties, followed the doomed 4 Nations strategy devised by SAGE England, resulting in one of the world’s worst Covid death rates. When it broke with the disastrous Johnson and Cummings herd immunity strategy, Scotland began to get the virus under control.The Public Accounts Committee in March 2018 condemned NHS England for failing to plan ahead and scraping “by on emergency handouts and funds... intended for essential investment. This contrasts with Audit Scotland’s October 2017 report praising the integration of health and care services and concluding there were “no significant weaknesses in the overall quality of care” provided.

An independent Scotland would have had the ability to stop the virus spreading in early March and, as other independent nations have demonstrated, the means to financially support its population.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Merchiston Crescent, Edinburgh

Party favours

The local Scottish groups of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties are urging us to vote for them as if they were independent political parties.

It would be interesting to know the Electoral Commission's view of the constitutional legality of this.

Peter Dryburgh, Falcon Avenue, Edinburgh

Slip sliding

I wasn’t surprised by the report of a new slip area at the Rest and Be Thankful pass (your report, February 17) as from what one reads it seems the whole country is on the slide.

S Beck, Craigleith Drive, Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid Letters to the Editor in your subject line.

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.