Readers' Letters: Labour does not have a magic bullet to fix the NHS

If Jackie Baillie (Scotsman, 1 January), or the Labour Party, had a magic bullet to solve the decades of UK under-investment in the NHS by successive governments, then they would have applied their solution in Wales where despite 25 years of Labour rule the NHS is in a much worse state than in Scotland.

In Wales there is a full-blown NHS crisis. Last week the Welsh Ambulance Service declared a critical incident because of increased demand across the 999 service and extensive hospital handover delays.

In sharp contrast with the position in Scotland, the NHS is not a political football and the Labour Welsh Health Secretary and government are given a pass from the media and no banner headlines with opposition politicians lining up to attack.

Scotland's NHS compares favourably with the rest of the UK, a reader suggests (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Excess deaths due to long A&E waits are almost three times more common in England than in Scotland while hospital buildings are in such a dilapidated state they risk fires, floods and electrical faults, internal NHS trust documents reveal, with leaders saying conditions have become “outright dangerous”.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Cold comfort

The Met Office has advised older people to “do everything they can to stay warm” as we face temperatures that could drop as low as -10C next week (Scotsman, 3 January).

If only we had a Scottish Government that cared about our elderly citizens and had not decided to means test the Scottish pension age winter fuel payment, a fully devolved benefit.

We keep hearing that the SNP want to make different decisions to those made at Westminster yet when they got the chance, they balked at making sure our elderly could afford to put their heating on.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

The guilty party

2025 has brought with it plummeting temperatures and I feel the need to ask Scottish Labour MPs if they feel the guilt which belongs to them and do they have second thoughts about turning the heating on in their own homes?

Our hard-pressed NHS is experiencing consequences of their actions in parliament – just ask Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray and UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk

Defining year

Alexander Brown's piece “It’s a defining year that will make or break Starmer and the SNP” (31 December) contained lengthy quotes with tired soundbites from Labour MPs Crichton and Murray (Chris, not Ian). How on Earth does an inanimate object – GB Energy – “roll up its sleeves”, and anyway, with its CEO based in Manchester it will be providing very few jobs, and far from reducing our runaway energy bills, it will be in the business of offering yet more investment opportunities to private companies and foreign investors.

Murray then uses a borrowed slogan “continuity won’t cut it”, which may have been a remnant from an Alba campaign on the election of Humza Youseff to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

As for making and breaking, signs are good for the SNP and other independence parties but Labour is irrevocably broken as it has shown itself to be "fir the money nae the few”.

Marjorie Thompson, Edinburgh

Jobs to be filled

In your leader article you express sympathy for the view that “Brexit and UK immigration rules make it harder for businesses to recruit staff from overseas” (2 January).

Why should we make that easier when we currently have 946,000 Neets (those aged 16-24 but not in employment, education or training) plus many others over 24, and when the UK’s net immigration was 1.5 million in the two years to Dec 2023?

Why are “progressives” happy for the UK’s GDP growth to depend on migrants, many of them from poorer countries which may well have greater need for them for their social, economic and political developments than we do? Moreover, recent data indicate that such immigration results in a reduced GDP per head, which is a far more important measure than our national GDP.

There may indeed be a case for a Scotland-specific visa system, but surely we should first deal with our appalling level of Neets of all ages.

Finally, it is too early to claim that Brexit is “the biggest act of self-harm the country has inflicted on itself”.

We were still recovering from the bankers’ shambles when Covid then dominated everything for over two years, as it still does in many ways, followed by the ongoing effects of Putin’s war.

While the UK and Scottish governments have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the past 15 years, nor have most EU members, particularly those most similar to us like France and Germany.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

All at sea

Perhaps the most important story in yesterday’s issue of The Scotsman (3 January) is tucked away at the foot of an inside page, namely the urgent need to rewild the seas. I remember reading years ago that we humans know less about the oceans than outer space and that ignorance can be devastating.

Compared to 40 years ago, the seas are described as “empty”, the innocent victim of human abuse. Recovery of the marine wilderness and grasses is vital, as is the rehabilitation of the oyster, a necessary link in the food chain.

Surely we have all noticed how quiet and empty and silent life on Earth has now become, missing out on the dawn chorus and the multitude of insects, pests and otherwise? Against this ubiquitous trend, only the human species is increasing at a steady and scary pace, mirrored no doubt by incremental damage on land and sea and, no doubt, in time, on space.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

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