Readers' Letters: John Swinney won't be able to stem tide of Trump in Scotland

First Minister John Swinney overestimates the Scottish Government’s power, says reader

How appropriate that Scotsman photographer John Devlin captured First Minister John Swinney wearing what appears to be a shining halo (your report, 23 January).

Mr Swinney was quoted as saying he was somehow going to “Trump-proof” the Scottish economy, alongside other virtue-signalling waffle about his sanctimonious, life-long opposition to “the far right”. The First Minister and his left-wing separatist movement can no more “Trump-proof” our economy than it can deliver growth, wealth and prosperity to “the people of Scotland”.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

First Minister John Swinney delivers a speech focused on the Scottish economy in central Glasgow on Wednesday (Picture: John Devlin)First Minister John Swinney delivers a speech focused on the Scottish economy in central Glasgow on Wednesday (Picture: John Devlin)
First Minister John Swinney delivers a speech focused on the Scottish economy in central Glasgow on Wednesday (Picture: John Devlin)

Visa unnecessary

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On Wednesday, your front page headline was “Swinney in new push for 'Scottish visa'.” John Swinney is hoping that the Government will allow his administration to create a special Scottish graduate visa to allow overseas students "to remain in the country after graduation".

As things stand, we already have a UK Graduate Visa entitling graduates to work here for two years after graduating and three years if they have a PhD, so there is no need for a separate Scottish one.

The UK has around 10 million people who were not born in the UK, most of whom are in England. If Mr Swinney thinks that the Scottish job market needs people to come here to live and work, there is an enormous market right on our doorstep.

In Scotland, too, the job market is thronged with foreign students who have come here to gain qualifications and, more importantly, to live and settle.

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Any employer in Scotland who wants to find graduates from all over the world can advertise in the UK for such people who are already here. There is no need for a separate visa and all the bureaucracy that that would entail. However, an alarming estimate appeared in the press on Thursday that one million illegal migrants are in the UK, at least, and over 500,000 are in London alone! That is 10 per cent of foreign immigrants.

It seems that most such illegals came here on work, study or visitor visas before overstaying!

In other words, they were given the very type of visa Mr Swinney thinks we need in Scotland.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Taxing future

At last something to cheer about – future local taxes will be fair, sustainable and evidence based, so three cheers for that one (22 January). I’m sure that we, the taxpayer, will get to review the evidence prior to the verdict, sorry, implementation and have our say!

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However, the article also contains the suggestion that local government might be given more revenue-generating powers, perhaps with wealth taxes! I guess that will need a lot more person power at town hall to collect that evidence and disseminate same, along with householders and business paying more to boot.

We can relax, though, because none of this will be implemented before the next election, which will be fought between the usual parties: SNP v Labour, SNP/Labour/Lib v Conservatives, Greens v Everyone Else, all under the banner of fair, sustainable, evidence-based policies that have been fully costed.

I can’t wait.

T Lewis, Coylton, Ayrshire

Fallen empires

It is extremely disheartening to read the adulatory missives on The Scotsman letters page about the return of Donald Trump.

As in Britain the media have successfully persuaded people that all their problems are external, due to refugees, immigrants and others who are not white. Yet in both Britain and the US investment in infrastructure has steadily declined since the late Seventies/early Eighties, coincidentally with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan's ascent to power.

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Wealth has become increasingly concentrated into fewer hands, public services have had to cope with less investment but more need, and soundbite politics reign triumphant. It is sadly clear that the lessons of history have not been learned, and the military industrial complex warned of by President Dwight D Eisenhower continues to siphon off yet more money for research and weapons used to pulverise the homes and relatives of the desperate people seeking sanctuary, those we demonise.

Indeed, The Scotsman’s own editorial calls for more “defence” spending. I would suggest real security comes from warm homes, enough food to eat, decent education and job prospects and protection from the very real and immediate threats posed by climate change. Or, if you will, “the weather”, since Trump and his people refuse to acknowledge that it exists.

An independent Scotland could, like Ireland and other small countries, provide hope for generations to come, as opposed to the continuing decline of empires which have lost their way, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Clouded thinking

Andrew HN Gray welcomes Donald Trump as “a breath of fresh air” (Letters, 23 January). Mr Gray describes the growing sales of EVs as “purely profit driven”. So does he think petrol and diesel car manufacturers are running charities?

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Mr Gray defends fossil fuels as providing “power and prosperity”. He might also add that burning oil and gas pumps out pollution of the most poisonous and perilous kind.

Roll on the transition to clean, low-cost energy from renewables and storage. Then we really will be able to enjoy a breath of fresh air.

Jeff Rogers, Waters of Feugh, Banchory

Dictated to

Am I overreacting or is the raft of Trump’s USA directives not more characteristic of an elective dictatorship than a democratic government?

Richard Perry, Burntisland, Fife

Zero brains?

On Wednesday morning, in the calm before the first big storm of the year, at 8.15am the thousands of onshore and offshore windfarms across the UK were producing 0.24 per cent of GB electricity; solar little more. At 6.15pm they were producing 1.62 per cent – and of course, solar was at a big fat zero. Without our 50 gas-fired power stations the Grid would have collapsed. Yet Energy Secretary Ed Miliband intends that the UK's gas-fired power stations will soon be shut down to reduce our CO2 emissions! He hopes battery storage yards will step in during lengthy calm spells. Some hope! Even the very largest battery plants can supply electricity for no more than three hours, and compared with the big reliable 2GW coal-fired power stations successive Labour and Tory governments blew up, only a miniscule amount.

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According to data gatherer Amira, at 5.30pm on Wednesday 8 January the surplus energy capacity across the UK had fallen to 580MW, a dangerously low level.

Sensible people should listen to Professor RG Faulkner of Loughborough University when he says: “In his push towards net zero Ed Miliband is committing us to a miserable future”.

Already, UK industrial energy costs are four times higher than in the USA. Just what does it take for our movers and shakers to get off this ruinous net zero bandwagon? Massive power cuts, I suspect.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Of one mind

I watched Wednesday's Holyrood debate on the attempt to railroad miles of pylons and square miles of substations through north-east Scotland and lack of consultation with campaign groups. The night before SSEN didn't turn up at a Stonehaven Community Council meeting on the topic and neither did local MSP and Energy Minister Gillian Martin, who has refused to meet campaign groups. But funnily enough, SSEN were at Holyrood, invited by Labour's Michael Marra.

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I was appalled by the eco-groupthink of SNP, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems, who followed the “it's got to, and it will, happen so the locals just need to suck it up” line. Conservative Douglas Lumsden was calling for a community veto on energy projects so it was one party with 31 MSPs against four with 98. The 65 cross party “majority” of MSPs who last week backed the Unite union's “No Ban Without a Plan” oil and gas campaign must have locked themselves in the toilet.

The four opposing parties are so in cahoots on this and other issues – not least gender, education and benefits – they might as well merge and revert to a two-party, first past the post system, with Reform allying with the Conservatives so we'd have a clear choice of the newly formed “Libnatlabreens”, versus Conform.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Depressing picture

Your editorial about the current National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) JMW Turner exhibition featuring the pictures on loan from the Vaughan Bequest collection in the National Gallery of Ireland is timely (22 January).

Sadly, NGS seem to have underestimated the public’s interest in the paintings. Hoping to see the exhibition this week, we found a queue of 40 minutes outside the Gallery in the cold, only to face an hour’s more queue inside.

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While this keen interest is a great tribute to Turner and the NGS, it’s a shame there is no advance booking system in place. Most of the people in the queue, which we didn’t join, were middle aged and elderly, some with walking sticks, portable seats and walking trolleys.

NGS is extending its opening hours to 8pm on the final week of this January exhibition. Another opportunity to queue in the cold, dark evenings.

Fiona Garwood, Edinburgh

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