Readers' Letters: Loss of Nature cash shows prospects for public life in Scotland are not good

Money for biodiversity projects such as tree planting is being diverted by the Scottish Government (Picture: Construction Photography/Avalon)

We have been told that public sector pay increases are to be funded from money previously set aside for the Nature Restoration Fund. From this we can learn two things.

Firstly, when combined with other funding reductions such as that for woodland planting, we can see that the environment is actually not that important to the Scottish Government, and certainly not a priority. Now that the conservation groups have been stung on this, perhaps it is time they got out of the Scottish Government’s back pocket and started campaigning again on the things they say are important to them.

Secondly, for the first time I think, we very clearly see the Scottish Government saying to local authorities that they have to take money from this area, and use it to fund something else instead. Government is therefore instructing and micro-managing local authorities on their spending priorities, and there should be a red warning light flashing for everyone on this.

Prospects for public life in Scotland are not good if this is what government does to try to protect themselves.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Cutting words

I always thought taxes were a means to the end result of service provision, with the level of the latter depending upon the former. But according to Brian Monteith (Perspective, 26 August), tax reduction is an end in itself, and a desirable one at that, even though reducing taxes implies the reduction of public services.

Maybe the title of his piece should have been,”Cutting services”.

Jane Ann Liston, St Andrews, Fife

Who benefits?

Joyce McMillan (Perspective, 23 August) says that removing universal welfare benefits is a “right wing policy”. Really! By means testing benefits, money could be saved, with the cash going to the genuinely needy – a “left wing policy”, surely?

She also says universal benefits enhance social capital and solidarity. Nonsense. Rich people getting welfare benefits is ludicrous.

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Antacid tablets

I hope that Scotland continues its policy of taxpayer-funded prescriptions being available for free at the point of collection. With the bile and spite that has recently entered so many letters from Nationalist supporters, presumably after their election losses, there is a desperate need for the continued availability of antacid or indigestion tablets.

The tablets won’t resolve the root cause of their self-delusion, but they might help with the heartache.

Brian Barbour, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

No chance

Elizabeth Scott writes: “Parents, if you want to leave your children a thriving country to work in, it is time to encourage the parties for independence to stop talking about it and start the separation process.” (Letters, 24 August).

Given that the SNP’s “de facto referendum” general election strategy didn’t quite go according to plan, can Ms Scott elaborate on what such a “separation process” might actually look like?Would this be similar to Catalonia’s illegal 2017 referendum, in which separatists declared independence on the strength of a 42 per cent turnout? No other country in the world recognised this farcical publicity stunt for the simple reason it had zero legitimacy and lacked any kind of democratic mandate.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Colony exam

I see that I have once more galvanised Stan Grodynski (Letters, 26 August) into writing his customary letter about the perceived evils of his UK bogeyman.

He virtually accuses me of wishing to “abandon democracy”, simply because I welcome the possibility of His Majesty’s sovereign government reining in the excesses of the Holyrood devolved administration.

As for his jibe about “colonial rule of Scotland”, even SNP MP Pete Wishart says, on X: “I don’t know where all this ‘colony’ rubbish comes from but [all it] does is make the movement look unhinged. Could you imagine going out Yes canvassing and asking normal people how they feel about their ‘colonial status’? You’d be laughed all the way down the street.”

The nationalist writer Gerry Hassan adds: “Scotland is not a colony; Scotland never was a colony; and no-one colonised Scotland.”

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Move over

It’s hard to believe our new Chancellor and Prime Minister when they iterate, parrot-like, that they have inherited a financial black hole, a broken society and a dire immigration problem. These sound very like the early excuses of a government with problems that it probably can’t handle. Keir Starmer warns us that things are going to get worse before they get better, but reassures us he will do anything it takes to help the situation.

There is one thing he could do to help – move over and let the previous government take over again. Economic indicators alone suggest they were doing better than Sir Keir believes he will be able to do. It could be a long five years.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

No fooling

The plummeting SNP membership figures have awakened all but the most blind in that party to what most people in Scotland think of it and their tenure in office. A fair summary would be that it indicates the truth in Abraham Lincoln's famous dictum: you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Cold hearts

Alexander Brown's article, “Calls for winter payment U-turn as energy price cap to rise by 10 per cent” (24 August) reflects the anger many people feel at the arbitrary nature of this tax increase, because it is a tax increase. We must all pay energy charges even if we don't use any energy, because we all are subject to the Standard Charge, a fee levied to pay for the existence of energy firms, and their running costs.

An analysis of energy firms' costs is instructive. Jonathan Brearley, chief executive of Ofgem, explained that the Standard Rate charge includes absorbing the debts of firms which have have been bankrupted by offering lower than standard prices for the energy they supply – and the advice to “shop around” is being offered again in light of Ofgem's 10 per cent price cap rise, absorbing the debts accrued by customers who cannot pay their bills and preparations to meet Net Zero targets by 2050. He added that if energy companies cancelled the Standard Rate payments these costs would be added to the unit rates per kilowatt hour, so everyone would pay more. Well, Mr Brearley, we're all forced to do that at the moment.

The consequence of this will not only be that many thousands of customers, old and young, will struggle to pay their energy bills and survive this winter's cold weather. Every business, commercial, industrial and service will have to increase their prices or reduce their workforces. More companies will sink into energy debt, as will many households. Many people, who feel they must turn off their energy, will suffer cold-related illnesses, adding to pressure on an already stretched NHS. The Price Cap increase is a self-defeating downward spiral.

If, however, the Price Cap was not introduced, none of the above consequences might arise. Chancellor Rachel Reeves might save the £1.4 billion she needs in a different way, perhaps by continuing Winter Fuel Payments to everyone whose income is lower than £30,000, which is the average wage in the UK, but not giving it to “wealthy” pensioners. An income of marginally over £12,500 does not make a pensioner wealthy, yet it is this ideological definition which is so unfair, and infuriating organisations like Age UK and MPs of all parties. Ms Reeves might contemplate the wider social and fiscal consequences of her decision to target pensioners and accept Ofgem's punishing tax increase.

Instead the Labour Party seems to be adopting Marie Antoinette's “Let them eat cake!” attitude to pensioners and the poorer in society. Ed Miliband states in his press release in defence of the Price Cap rise, "the solution to energy independence is to sprint towards clean, homegrown power". He does not mention how long this transition will take, and we might all freeze in the interim, but like the French peasants, the rest of us are always revolting.

Lovina Roe, Perth

Dragon’s breath

So Keir Starmer thinks he can do business with China's red leader Xi Jinping without endangering our and other democracies around the world, in particular Taiwan. There are many dangerous players on this planet and China must the worst of all because of its wealth corrupting power. If Starmer believes he can promote business with China without increasing its malign influence he's a fool – you cannot negotiate with a dragon when your head is in its mouth and the more entrenched the relationship, the more emboldened the dragon becomes.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Some might say

Oasis split in the first place because they were completely out of other people's ideas. Yes, today's music is communion wafer-bland and the current zeitgeist is long past exorcism, but the current attempts to create another Diet Cool Britannia era are bad enough without a Diet version of the Diet Beatles.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

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