The Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition (SHWC) demand for “the reintroduction of masks in all health and social care settings” is understandable from a group of workers who have a significantly higher rate of both Covid infection and long Covid syndrome. They are nonetheless deeply misinformed that a return to across-the-board mask wearing will protect them – there are numerous properly conducted research stiudies demonstrating the uselessness of masks in preventing transmission.

The communication lockdown caused by indiscriminate masking of our interpersonal communications is increasingly being recognised as the cause of untold suffering, loneliness, misdiagnosis and arguably death. The muscles of facial expression took millions of years to evolve and are an essential accompaniment to verbalisation in the human struggle for survival and this mechanism was denied us for years, resulting in traumatised children, alienated adults and a failure to comfort the sick and fearful.

The SHWC members and their leadership need to know that the reason they were more vulnerable was that in general the majority of them come from relatively low income groups working under great stress on 12-hour shifts with low status in an atmosphere of fear deliberately generated by Hancock et al. They witnessed great suffering in families isolated from their loved ones and were emotionally blackmailed via the “no jab, no job” threats. All of these factors lead to one common, and at times lethal, effect – an exhausted immune system and a liability to infection. The conscientious servants of the sick who went the extra mile depleted themselves while the strains of “jolly boating weather” emanated from 10 Downing Street.

The Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition has mooted a return to NHS masking (Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

(Dr) Andrew Docherty, Melrose, Scottish Borders

SNP setbacks

How telling that the greatest criticisms of the previous SNP regime recently have come from within the separatist movement.

At the weekend, SNP politician – or rather, ex-SNP politician Angus MacNeil – launched a blistering attack on Nicola Sturgeon and her regime, not holding back. “The secret plan for independence?… We have never had one” he bemoaned. “Activists were lulled into a false sense of security,” And what does it say about these activists and supporters that they could not see through Sturgeon’s fantasyland? What about her band of SNP politicians – could they not see through the scam, or did they not want to see through the scam? Of course they didn’t, they are on a lucrative gravy train.

And on Saturday at the service in Inverness for Win nie E wing, Alex Salmond, in his eulogy, said: “Winnie never held office but you don’t have to hold high office to achieve something, just as you can hold office and achieve nothing.” Ouch! Nicola Sturgeon was at the service, I wonder how uncomfortable she felt.

So here we have two high-profile separatists, one previously in the SNP, seriously criticising the regime since 2014 and the other denouncing the leader since 2014. Surely the dream to destroy the constitution of the United Kingdom has been set back decades or is even dead.

Douglas Cowe, Kingseat, Aberdeenshire

Train of thought

Yet more disruption on our railways affecting commuters and holidaymakers. The ASLEF overtime ban will bring more misery to travellers and begs the question as to why the train companies rely so much on rest day working, why they do not have sufficient drivers to provide a basic service without the need for overtime.

At a reported salary in excess of £60,000 without overtime, one wonders why people are not queuing up to be trained as drivers given the cost of living crisis that we have. Something is certainly not right.

Bob MacDougall, Oxhill, Kippen, Stirlingshire

Eire errors

Like several other separatist correspondents, Grant Frazer demonstrates limited understanding of Irish affairs (Letters, 18 July). He describes Ireland as “socially democratic and progressive”. Indeed?

Eire has almost identical levels of taxation and wealth inequality to Great Britain. The country has never had a socialist government and is currently run by a three-party coalition (including the Greens!) desperately cobbled together to keep out politically toxic Sinn Féin, whose social and economic policies resemble those of our own glorious SNP.

A constitutional ban on abortion was only removed in 2019, and until very recently parents had to pay for their children’s schoolbooks. If Mr Frazer resided in the Republic of Ireland he would probably have to pay for his healthcare, American-style.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Proud history

In his eagerness to chastise Stan Grodynski for supporting the case for Scottish independence, Derek Farmer plays about a bit too much with history (Letters, 17 July)

In putting forward his positive case for the merits of the UK, he states: “UK history shows it was the UK that first recognised the international inhumanity of slavery and actually did something about it.”

Mr Farmer is incorrect. The UK was not the first to recognise the inhumanity of slavery; it was the Court of Session in Scotland in 1777 which declared slavery to be contrary to Scots law. In the second half of the 18th century there were four cases in the newly formed UK that challenged the legality of slavery: three in Scotland, each of which reached the Court of Session; and one in England, in 1772, where the presiding judge was Lord Mansfield – a case that involved James Somerset, who had been bought as a slave in Boston, New England, by a merchant and customs officer, Charles Stewart.

The first two cases in Scotland, Montgomery vs Sheddan (1756) and Dalrymple vs Spens (1769), did not reach a judgment as, in each case, either the pursuer or defendant died before judgment could be made. The third case was between Joseph Knight and Sir John Wedderburn from Perthshire, who had bought Knight as a slave in Jamaica.

Lord Mansfield’s judgment was that, since no law enacting slavery had been passed by the English Parliament, slavery could not be enforced. There was no impediment to the Parliament enacting such a law.

The Court of Session’s 1777 judgement, however, declared slavery to be, in principle, contrary to Scots law. This means no Act of Parliament could be enacted which made slavery legal in Scotland. It also meant that, had Scots Law, rather than English Law, formed the basis of legislation in the British colonies in the Americas, slavery would have been declared illegal there in 1777, long before the UK “first recognised the international inhumanity of slavery and actually did something about it”.

(Dr) Francis Roberts, Edinburgh

Not a good look

Reports of the soup kitchen supply van, which feeds many homeless people in Glasgow city centre, being hounded by the SNP-run council for parking fines, is disheartening. Surely this can be solved amicably?

It is particularly galling that while this drags on, shots of Stephen Flynn, the nationalist leader at Westminster, and his colleague Brendan O’Hara wolfing into a lobster and select seafood grilled feast are circulating wildly on social media. Political sure-footedness it is not. “Let them eat lobster” comes to mind. Or, “Do as we say, not as we do”,

Those who claim that the homeless feeding project in the centre of Glasgow sends out what the powers-that-be there consider a bad image of the city may have a point. Now, juxtaposed with the soup kitchen, the shot of the two SNP MPs eating a meal that more than 95 per cent of those they represent could not afford, could be eye-opening.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Package deal

The Minister Of Defence, Ben Wallace, warned Ukraine: “We Are Not Amazon” given their lack of gratitude for Britain's help during the war.

That much is true. If we had delivered to Volodymyr Zelelenskyy, and he wasn't in, we would have had to deliver to his neighbour, Belarus.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

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Readers' Letters: NHS workers' call for return to mask wearing misguided

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