Readers' Letters: Politicians have let down elderly who worked for this nation

Are well-paid MPs and MSPs right to tell senior citizens they can't have £300 winter payment? (Picture: Adobe)

I have read the pages of The Scotsman for over 60 years and have never, in all that time, been moved to write a few comments, until now. I am over 90 years of age and am fortunate, in that I have never been unemployed for one day. Like thousands of others, I completed my National Service, where I was paid shillings, when I could have been earning pounds as a qualified tradesman. I have paid my taxes and nation insurance as required, only to be told I must forfeit my winter heating payment.

We are told that the country has a black hole of £22 billion. We are also told that we must all pull together to help fill this hole.

Might I suggest that there are at least two sections of society who could, should, but don’t contribute to this filling process. Firstly, there are our Members of Parliament, who might be asked to make a small contribution, say £300, to this fund. After all, they were the ones who helped create this hole, they also voted for the elimination of the winter fuel allowance. They could recoup this contribution from the subsidies they receive on catering while in parliament, or maybe from their over-generous travelling expenses.

The second group are the firms who supply the power for our heating etc. They might be asked to contribute, say, £150 per pensioner that they supply power to. These contributions may not be enough to completely fill our black hole, but it might reduce it to the size of one of the potholes we encounter on our roads throughout the country.

Some may say I have shot myself in the foot by writing these comments but there is one consolation – I would have only one foot to keep warm this winter.

Jim Barrie, Eyemouth, Scottish Borders

Cunning plan?

In the run-up to the general election we were assured by Labour that they had “a plan” for everything! Three months into their time in government we have really seen very little evidence of this or action on any front – immigration, economic growth, the NHS and other key areas. What we have seen is a run on the pound averted, though at the expense of the very many pensioners who are not millionaires, illegal immigration continuing apace and the mythical £22 billion black hole widened with generous public sector pay increases. Oh, and let’s not forget the freebies enjoyed by the Prime Minister and others.

Change doesn’t always happen quickly but I would have expected to see signs of forthcoming improvement. All that is happening is that we await the potential of bad news in the Budget at the end of month as it is difficult to see any silver lining in it. Am I just being pessimistic or is there really a plan?

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

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In an email to members outlining the application process for prospective Holyrood candidates, SNP National secretary Alex Kerr said they want candidates “...as representative of modern Scotland as possible”, and are particularly encouraging “...people from backgrounds that are currently under-represented in the Scottish Parliament" to apply.

That obviously means 50 per cent women, but shouldn't a candidate list reflecting “modern Scotland” include, for example 67 per cent obese people, 16 per cent economically inactive, 20 per cent retired, 30 per cent on some form of benefit, and the 55 per cent who are against independence?

The last would obviously be a challenge for the SNP.

But would that guarantee a more competent set of politicians in Holyrood?

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Celebrate CO2

As William Loneskie says, the current government's policy on climate, echoed by the Scotsman's editorial, shows that the new religion of “climate change” is well-embedded in a left of centre strand of thinking (Letters, 9 October).

Clearly, even to the most committed, the gargantuan effort needed to achieve “net zero” will leave the UK subject to unreliable “renewable” sources of energy at a time we already have a great need for power which is based here in the UK, not in France or Norway.

Security when Russia is empire-building demonstrates that that is essential. In fact, the only way of achieving net zero is to stop doing anything productive. The result will be that China makes everything, and it is well on the way to doing just that. We must make things here in the UK and in Europe.

Why should we want net zero? Because a group of Marxists has very effectively undermined thinking in the west. As the Canadian Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace (and very much no longer associated with that movement), has said, the science has been overtaken by a political faction aiming to undermine the west. As Moore, an ecologist, says, we should celebrate carbon dioxide because it is the most important food for all life on Earth.

Any warming in the atmosphere is to be welcomed. It is cyclical and normal. The alternative is the next ice age, which is already overdue. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is irrelevant, as has been shown in previous ice ages.

We have a choice of enjoying the benefits of not being as cold as we were 200 years ago, or, alternatively, of being one mile under ice. I know which option I prefer.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Unwelcome truths

Stèaphan Fisher celebrates the PM’s unwise, sudden handover of the strategically important Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a country allied to hostile China (Letters, 8 October).

He hopes that this is “the start of something new and, when the people decide, he is equally amenable both to the North of Ireland being reunited with the Republic, and our own dear Alba being an independent nation once again”.

The popular ditty Mr Fisher so cleverly alludes to in the last four words of his sentence was, ironically, the rallying song of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party, which until 1918 campaigned for Home Rule, not independence.

Apart from Scottish separatists, the only others clamouring for an Ulster border poll are Sinn Féin. In the 26 counties they’ve now slumped to just 12 per cent in opinion polls, as the electorate realises just how crazy their far-left economic policies are.

The party’s support for unrestricted immigration has seen some of its working-class vote shift to newly formed Aontú, which (apart from the tricolours) looks a bit like Reform UK.

The current Dublin Government remains very quiet about any plebiscite, painfully aware of the financial and social implications of absorbing its neighbour.

Like the minority SNP Holyrood administration, Sinn Féin may be the largest party in the Stormont assembly, but most people still don’t vote for them, given their toxic heritage and apparent desire to turn the whole island into another Nicaragua or Venezuela.

It’s disgraceful that Britain forcibly removed the Chagos islanders during the 1960s, resettling them in Mauritius and the UK. These displaced people have never been asked what they wanted, so it would be understandable if they wished to break the UK connection.

However, the overseas territories of Bermuda, Anguilla, Gibraltar and the Falklands all had referendums and chose to remain British. Mr Fisher might even recall the 2014 democratic event in Scotland and that nationalists recently faced a near wipe-out at Westminster.

Hopefully Stèaphan Fisher will agree that even those of us sporting fine Celtic names should take account of unwelcome truths when presenting arguments.

Máirtín Ó’Gormáin, Edinburgh

Badenoch on the up

It’s refreshing that Kemi Badenoch has topped the poll to make the last two in the Tory leadership contest. Unusually for a politician, she gives straight answers to questions. She is not afraid of being controversial, such as by calling for a reduction in maternity pay and stating that not all cultures are equally valid. What she lacks in experience and tact she makes up for in charisma and authenticity.

Badenoch is seen as being more popular than Robert Jenrick with Tory members, who are generally white, retired and from Southern England. Members are not averse to electing right wing populist leaders who like speaking their mind, such as Truss and Johnson, so Badenoch has a chance.

She is aided also by changing the pronunciation of her name to Bade-n-ok, removing any connotation of “bad” and “Enoch”, described jokingly on the BBC’s Have I Got News for You programme as a disadvantage.

The anglicisation in the pronunciation of Badenoch’s name helps nullify any comparison to the Wolf of Badenoch, who notoriously destroyed Elgin in the 14th century, and makes her more acceptable to the largely English membership. Ms Badenoch couldn’t be further from Keir Starmer in her political ideology, communication style and appearance, key advantages for members.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Good book closed

Bullying charges against The Right Rev Anne Dyer, the bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, have been dropped as it was claimed a trial would be neither “in the interests of the church,” or “in the public interest”.

Public interest here was characterised as “the wider church community and general confidence in the church”.

Whatever the truth of this case it is unnerving to hear of this conflation.

Once again a minority religious group is being allowed to mark its own homework.

Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society, Edinburgh

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