Readers' Letters: Lessons should be learned from school which put knowledge first
An “innovation” has been undertaken at a school in Berwickshire (“School’s example should be followed all over Scotland”, 20 January). In four years under the headmaster’s leadership, the school has gone from weak to sector-leading. What is this life-changing innovation? What has this headmaster done to give these pupils opportunities to succeed in school and beyond? He took the much derided and inappropriately named Curriculum for Excellence and redesigned it by putting knowledge-based content back into the curriculum.
To many of us who were schooled before the SNP got hold of our education system, the success of this comes as no surprise. A curriculum that doesn’t have knowledge at its core is doomed to fail. As Professor Lindsay Paterson, professor emeritus of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, says, “the return of knowledge to the curriculum throughout the rest of Scotland could produce a new generation of talent”.
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Hide AdI wonder if First Minister John Swinney and Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth will take lessons from experts where their previous leader, Nicola Sturgeon, wouldn’t. Somehow I doubt it.


Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray
Loose lips
Lorna Slater is concerned over President Donald Trump's potential tariffs on Scottish goods (your report, 20 January). It is a case of too little and far too late from Ms Slater and her Green co-leader Patrick Harvie. These two have absolutely laid into President Trump at Holyrood and have made their dislike of him crystal clear. This comes with consequences, as Scotland may well find to its cost. The SNP are also complicit in this as Donald Trump has fallen foul of them many times.
Politicians are meant to help, not hinder, and think first before opening their mouths. Scotland is not exempt from this cardinal rule.
Gerald Edwards, Glasgow
Skewed priorities
Sir Keir Starmer has signed up to the UK paying Ukraine £3 billion this year. The cost of the Winter Fuel Payment was £2bn a year. We will have an opportunity to comment on Labour's priorities at the Scottish Election!
John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife
Warm wishes
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Hide AdElizabeth Scott (Letters, 20 January) seems unaware that the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) was devolved to the Scottish administration, to which £160 million was paid to cover the cost. We know the money was received by the Scottish administration because its own budget documents include the following: “Savings: Winter Fuel Payments: Diverting funding previously planned for universal winter fuel payments for pensioners. £160 million”. Where these funds were “diverted” to is not vouchsafed to us. Perhaps they are paying for the dozen or so civil servants still working on secession planning.
It is true that the Treasury may well claw that money back, at some point in the future. But to govern is to choose, and correspondents on this page have repeatedly outlined the savings on superfluous expenditure that Scottish ministers could make.
Ms Scott is touchingly naïve in saying that “the SNP are clearly focused on keeping us warm and alive”. Not this winter, they aren’t, even though they received that £160m. There is a vague aspiration in Shona Robison’s budget about reinstating the WFP at some point in the future, for some pensioners. With a larger budget deficit looming, that looks increasingly like pie in the sky.
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh
Outstanding
Well done Martin Clunes for acting in Out There, the new ITV drama series on county lines drug-dealing. The UK National Crime Agency has said: “County Lines is where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs. The ‘County Line’ is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs. Importing areas (areas where the drugs are taken to) are reporting increased levels of violence and weapons-related crimes as a result of this trend.”
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Hide AdThere are importing areas in Scotland. A search on “county lines” at www.scotland.police.uk brings up 59 press releases, of which 11 relate to 2024. These show that exporting areas include London, Merseyside and the West Midlands.
Last November the UK National Police Chiefs Council coordinated an “intensification week” which, in Scotland, resulted in search warrants of houses, arrests, seizures of drugs, cash, weapons, vehicles and mobile phones – and the safeguarding of 66 vulnerable people.
Out There will raise people’s awareness of county lines. But, to alert the public, television channels and newspapers should report more on county lines.
E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire
Rallying cry
I was pleased to see that the police had stopped a rally in London (your report, 20 January) and would like to see legislation requiring the police to take such action regarding any gatherings, including all demonstrations and picketing, which threaten to hinder citizens from going about their lawful business.
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Hide AdThose wishing to hold a rally should hire a football stadium or the like for the purpose.
S Beck, Edinburgh
Warmonger
As the Israeli Gaza temporary ceasefire takes effect, Benjamin Netanyahu seems intent on resuming the war with more force. As your report (18 January) stated, Netanyahu “insisted there were last-minute snags” which he blamed on Hamas and he has now threatened to exert more force if the ceasefire is broken.
The Israeli Prime Minister is a warmonger who can’t stop killing Gazans despite the majority of Israelis favouring a permanent ceasefire to complete bringing all the hostages home.
Netanyahu’s regime has already killed nearly 47,000 Gazans, mostly women and children, and displaced nearly all 2 million but it seems that is not enough for the man wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
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Hide AdIf the ceasefire does not hold it’s a blow for Donald Trump, who has staked political capital on the deal even though it was first tabled in May last year. A fragile temporary ceasefire is a missed opportunity for peace; to quote an ancient Jewish text from Isaiah chapter 61, there could have been “liberty to captives… joy instead of mourning”.
Instead Netanyahu, by threatening to prolong the killing and suffering of the innocent, would rather save himself than all the hostages. We can only hope that Trump is firmer with Netanyahu and withdraws US arm shipments to help secure a lasting peace.
Neil Anderson, Edinburgh
Star player
Denis Law has been hailed as the best Scottish footballer ever by none other than Sir Alex Ferguson. Perhaps even more laudable is Sir Alex’s description of him as an “incredible human being”.
In an era of obscene contracts for often overrated footballers, whose greed is insatiable, the contrast with Denis Law is striking and significant. He played most of his football in England, mostly at Manchester United, but was one of the first British footballers to sample continental football with Torino.
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Hide AdArguably, the most staggering fact about Denis Law was just how little we know about him, compared with, say, George Best. His private life remained just that, private, and any news headlines concerning him remained firmly within the realms of football. Modest and self effacing to the end, he would surely be surprised by how much he is missed.
Ian Petrie, Edinburgh
No relation
Correspondent Doug Morrison from Kent seeks to denigrate the leader of the Conservative party by ascribing parallel sins of history to her husband's family (Letters, 15 January). He is badly informed. The Wolf of Badenoch, (Earl of Buchan-Alasdair Mor Mac-an-Righ) was the thuggish third son of King Robert the Second, and was hence a Stuart.
He was given the nickname not for any blood ties, but because he ravaged the lands and peoples of Badenoch and demanded “protection” money from the Canons of Elgin Cathedral, taking revenge by burning the Cathedral when they refused to pay up. A noted philanderer and misogynist, he was excommunicated by Rome and is buried obscurely in a backroom of Dunblane Cathedral where all may go and spit on his grave.
Christopher Ogilvie Badenoch, Kelso, Roxburghshire
Mhairi story
Reader Martin Redfern claims nobody knew who former SNP Deputy Westminster Leader Mhairi Black was when she scored 0 points as the answer to a question on Pointless Celebrities on Saturday evening (Letters, 20 February).
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Hide AdEr, no. The contestant knew who she was and won £250 accordingly! Is this just another example of some regular Scotsman correspondents' relentless campaign of misinformation when it comes to anything to do with the SNP?
Or is it just another Pointless letter?
Robert Menzies, Falkirk
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