Readers' Letters: It's time to crack down on the dark art of lobbying

As a longstanding Labour supporter I am dismayed by the recurring reports of gifts and freebies. I had been wondering why the SNP were not out in force shouting the odds about scandal and sleaze. Jenny Gilruth did call out Labour’s Ian Murray on Question Time but had little to say when it was pointed out that Stephen Flynn, for example, had also been in receipt of hospitality for sporting events.

Scotland on Sunday, however, revealed the full reasons the SNP have been relatively quiet on the issue. SNP MSPs have been talking to lobbyists en masse at “speed dating” stands and receiving gifts not from private individuals but from lobbyists! Ms Gilruth's hypocrisy is typical SNP, though it has to be said that the revelations failed to paint the Labour Party in any better light as MSPs from its party and others were similarly implicated.

These practices have been going on, of course, since time immemorial. When they are highlighted we get the usual excuses that no laws have been broken or rule contravened and that all is transparent. Transparency, however, is simply not good enough. Nor is tweaking the rules to "tighten things up". A complete overhaul is required and not just at party level.

Nationalists have criticised Labour over 'freebies' but SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn enjoyed VIP tickets to Wimbledon (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

At the very least public appearances by elected representatives involving hospitality should be restricted only to occasions where some clear benefit for the people who elect them can be ascertained.

Receiving personal gifts from lobbyists should be outlawed entirely or restricted to merely token presentations of little financial value. Whether or not any influence is exerted on the recipient of freebies from whatever source, the outside observer considers there is no such thing as a free lunch – and there probably isn't.

Colin Hamilton, Edinburgh

Shifting sands

On 27 August, just 57 days after the General Election, Sir Keir Starmer delivered his major “sermon” to the people, telling us that “the project has always been about fixing the foundations of this country”. It has now become clear that the Labour Party manifesto was itself most certainly not built on strong foundations but perhaps more on shifting sands.

It seems highly likely that the manifesto pledge of scrapping Non-dom status will be withdrawn and the pledge to impose VAT on private school fees may, at the minimum, be delayed.

In addition, the manifesto contained no proposals to scrap the winter fuel payment for pensioners but this was delivered, it seems, without an impact study.

Making policy on shifting and inadequate foundations will inevitably lead to subsidence and ultimately a crumbling edifice.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Make ‘em pay

Rachel Reeves is looking to plug a black hole in UK Government finance of £20 billion .She need look no further than foreign multinationals who, through use of transfer pricing, choose to make their profit in low tax countries like Ireland and Luxemburg and thus deprive the Exchequer of revenue Here are some examples:

Amazon: Turnover – $33.6bn; net profit – £155m

Starbucks: Turnover – £547.7m; net profit – £21.7m

If she were to tax these companies 10 per cent of their turnover it would generate around £4bn, and then there are all the rest!

Colin McAllister, St Andrews, Fife

Unfit to govern

Has the SNP learned no lessons (“Greens hint tax rises may see them back the budget”, 8 October)? Anything the Greens want turns into a nightmare for the SNP. These new tax plans will simply damage the struggling Scottish economy. The Greens are not for economic growth, quite the reverse.

Why is it the SNP can only contemplate tax rises, and not try tax cuts to boost the economy? The underlying problem is our electoral system that has big flaws when it awards a modicum of power to fringe parties that have little general public support. While first past the post is not perfect at least it provides a functional government.

The Holyrood system is not working as it either creates what we have now, stasis, or allows a party to dominate, as with the SNP, but with policies that are not credible and claims that are not credible either. Something needs to change. The state Scotland is in right now is proof.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Green silence

It is surprising that the hint from the Green Party that tax rises may see them back the SNP budget did not seem to include the £130 billion capital sum required to decarbonise Scottish homes. As this debt has Increased by a factor of 4 in less than five years it would appear imperative to commence the debt collection now as, if left till after the election in 2026, the cost could well spiral above £200 billion!

Is the deafening silence over this project a sign that the SNP have binned the project until work to dual the A9 has been completed ?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

EVs does it

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This is certainly true of politicians egged on by the green brigade. They have rushed the UK into adopting battery farms, e-scooters, e-bikes and electric vehicles, saying they will save the planet, while ignorant of the dangers – or maybe ignoring them.

Lithium-ion batteries are prone to thermal runaway, explosions and the resulting fires create highly toxic gases. The fires are hard to extinguish so often have to be left to burn out. London Transport and rail networks have banned e-scooters and e-bikes from their networks. Many countries have banned EVs from multi-story car parks. Ships carrying EVs have sunk, e-scooters and e-bikes have gone on fire in houses and flats.

Are councils not aware of the fire and explosion risk when they give planning permission to battery farms despite news reports and public opposition? Councils must immediately ban e-scooters and e-bikes from council flats and multi-story properties before there is another Grenfell tragedy, and critically review planning applications for battery farms which pose a toxic gas danger.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Fool’s errand

The Scotsman editorial (5 October) laments the melting of a patch of snow on a Scottish mountain and says this “sentinel” means “we must move towards net zero”. Why? The writer says that to get to this promised land we must capture some of the 0.04 per cent of CO2 that makes up the air and store it under the North Sea. This is exactly what the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has set in motion with three projects costing £22 billion which will capture – wait for it – 2 pe cent of the UK's CO2 emissions and store them under the North Sea and Liverpool Bay. This must rank as one of the worst wastes of public money ever conceived by a UK government, a government which removed winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners to help fill in a supposed £20bn black hole.

Mr Miliband intends to increase the number of solar-farms threefold, double the number of onshore wind farms and increase fourfold the number of sea wind farms by 2030, while closing all gas-fired power stations. As all nuclear power stations bar one will be closed, engineers are desperately trying to work out how they are going to keep the Grid stable at 50Hz. While turbines of coal and gas generators provide stable power, wind and solar do not.

Incredibly, one scheme already under way to stabilise the this brave new unstable grid and to minimise blackouts is to build over 100 giant flywheels weighing hundreds of tons, placed around the country and driven by giant lithium batteries. What could possibly go wrong?

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Rather fishy

Am I the only one to be confused or amused by Scotsman Food editor Rosalind Erskine’s reference to a single fish supper (8 October)?

There must be more regional variations than even she has encountered, where I come from, Midlothian, a single fish is a fish served on its own, a fish supper is a fish with chips and a request for a single fish supper would result in a puzzled look and the reply “What?”

What was better was the puzzlement of my wife when asking for a single sausage then, protesting politely when being served two that she only wanted a single one – to be informed a single sausage meant two.

Neil Robertson, Edinburgh

Help ma boab!

Stephen Kerr MSP has appeared in the Times denigrating the Scots language, suggesting that “written Scots should be left to the pages of Oor Wullie and the Broons, and esoteric authors”.

Mr Kerr is welcome to relinquish his Scots identity and clothe himself in the union flag if he wishes but he has no right to make any advances against any aspect of Scots culture. I refer him to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Minorities in which it is required that “States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity”. We Scots must demand the international agreements enshrined in various UN Declarations are honoured where they apply to our country and its relationship with the neighbouring country that governs us.

Meanwhiles, Mr Kerr can jist set on his bachoochie an haud his wheesht.

Ni Holmes, St Andrews, Fife

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