Readers' Letters: Repetitive Independence arguments distract from real issues

Less than a week into the new year and already the latest salvos in the war of words between the Separatist and pro-UK camps have been launched. Letters fired from the keyboards of the regular Pro-Indy contributors to the letters pages will no doubt draw return barrages from the Pro-UK contingent and this will intensify the closer we get to a general election.

Scars from the divisive Brexit campaign remain, says reader (Picture: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

They are representative of the estimated 30 per cent of the electorate strongly in favour of separation and approximately the same percentage who strongly opposed and are extremely unlikely to be change each others minds, but seek to influence the remaining 40 per cent, who may have opinions on the issue but could be influenced one way or the other. If you are one of the 40 per cent “persuadables”, but have neither the time nor the inclination to study the issue in detail, here's an approach you might consider.

Think about the volume of serious and complex issues facing our country and the world, ranging from wars and global warming effects through to cost of living and the NHS and Artificial Intelligence. Now consider the capabilities of our current crop of politicians – whether in government or in opposition – who are already struggling to come up with effective policies to address these issues in the unpredictability of the modern world.

Finally, ask yourself whether adding the cost, uncertainty and distraction of an independence referendum to the mix will help or hinder them in finding solutions. A useful reference point would be Brexit and the fact that whether you were in the Remain or Leave camp to begin with, few would deny that eight years after the referendum process commenced it has taken up a huge amount of money, political time and effort, with many of the pre-existing issues as yet unresolved. It shouldn't take you long to reach a conclusion.

Mark Openshaw, Cults, Aberdeen

Trial and error

Jill Stephenson suggests a trial period for Scottish Independence (Letters, 5 January). What an excellent idea! I think five years, rather than two, would allow a better period for adjustment. Of course, the trial would have to be on a realistic basis. So all income tax paid by people with addresses in Scotland; all VAT paid by people with addresses in Scotland; all National Insurance, both employee and employer contributions, paid by people with addresses in Scotland; all fuel and energy surcharges paid by people with addresses in Scotland, all vehicle road taxes paid by people and businesses with addresses in Scotland, duty paid on oil extracted from the North Sea, and so on, would be paid into the Scottish Exchequer for the duration of the trial.

The Scottish Government would need to have more extensive money creation powers, ideally through having a Scottish Central Bank, than the limited borrowing powers it currently has. This would allow for policy decisions, such as improved pension and fairer social security payments, to be taken. The introduction of a tax on the area of land owned in Scotland, whether or not the owners live in Scotland, would reduce inequality. And, of course, the Trident fleet could take a turn at being based elsewhere. After the trial there would, I think, need to be a Referendum. It could involve the whole (temporarily suspended) UK. And the question might be: “Should England be an independent country?” What's not to like? Gaun yersel, Jill!

A final question; how many countries, having left the UK, have sought to return? Maybe it would be easier, and less costly all round, just to go for the real thing from the get-go?

Julian Smith, Dunfermline, Fife

Rose-coloured age

Murdo Fraser chastises Angela Constance for questioning the supposed golden age of Scottish Education (Perspective, 4 January). Like Ms Constance, I would also like to know the basis of this oft-voiced claim. Reading a book on the history of Scottish education over Christmas I could find no answer. Indeed, two researchers described the “lad o’ pairts” paradigm as “a national myth” and said most historians viewed it as “an individualist form of meritocracy rather than reflecting a classless society”.

Scottish educational attainment was actually falling behind other countries up till the 1980s. Standards were not necessarily dropping, rather it was a case of other countries catching up. In 1997 after 17 years of the Conservatives being in charge of Scottish education, levels had fallen still further in international comparison tables. Even England was now overtaking Scotland in English and mathematics. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Yet this was taking place ten years before the SNP came to power.

Moreover, comparing the results from today’s comprehensives with those from a prior selective system is by definition going to produce poorer results. My experience of the latter in the 1960s was of a system which was hopelessly biased towards maintaing the status of the school rather than helping less gifted pupils onto the ladder of further education. I myself was told to my face I was “not good enough” for university. Yet ten years later I had two diplomas and two degrees, including a Masters.

As for Scots being highly respected in London, that’s simply evidence of elitism rather than egalitarianism. To make your way in the world you had to go south if you were Scottish. The irony in my case was that I found myself being rejected for jobs in London because I was now “overqualified”.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk

In praise of NHS

I am fed up with reading about the poor service our NHS offers. OK, at busy times in a few areas with small hospitals, patients have had to wait for a ward bed at A&E. Sometimes they are cared for on a trolley made up as a bed in a corridor. Were Scotland able to govern itself, that could be remedied. However, it is up to us, the voters, to ensure it does. In most of Scotland, Christmas and New Year was coped with well by our NHS and for the rest of the year my experience, and that of my friends, has been that when the illness is acute, investigation and treatment is offered well inside acceptable times. When I think of the enormous amount of extra work by NHS staff during the Covid epidemic, I am amazed at their fortitude.

Running NHS Scotland down is just part of the Unionist effort to make us think we can’t manage. I worked in NHS Scotland and I was proud of the service they offered. We should all be.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh

Begorrah!

Mary Thomas (Letters,5 January) compares NHS performance in different UK nations, and claims that Scotland does best. Surely, an argument in favour of devolution. She also extolls the virtues of the Republic of Ireland. Perhaps after independence she would welcome the reform of the NHS to rectify its current manifold performance indicator failures in Scotland by replacing it with a system like the Irish one in which two thirds of the population have to pay to see a GP or attend an A&E department.

The high ROI GDP has been described as leprechaun economics, because it owes so much to multinational information technology companies basing themselves there for tax reasons. I doubt whether modernising our shipyards would have produced the same economic boost, as Ms Thomas suggests. The ferries scandal under the SNP suggests the opposite.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Jail hoaxers

With ambulances stacked at hospitals waiting to disgorge patients and sick and injured people waiting hours for an ambulance, it seems insane that individuals should even contemplate making hoax calls, thus affecting the availability of these valuable, life-saving resources.

The revelation that 1,400 such malicious calls were made in the last four years is disgraceful and prison should be the first resort for the perpetrators, with only limited mitigating factors allowing them to escape incarceration.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirlingshire

Level field

Steuart Campbell criticises me for saying “sea levels are not increasing” (Letters, 5 January). If he reads my letter of 29 December, he will see that I said “sea levels are not increasing any more now than they were a century ago”. Criticise me for what I have said by all means, but not for what I haven’t said!

The problem with credibility is when one group uses information in a way which is based on incorrect information, or simply misuses it. Take the term, “Climate Change”. There is nothing wrong with that term. The climate is always changing and has often (very often and for very long periods in the past), so anyone who cites it is on to a surefire winner. Also, when you are coming out of an ice age, sea levels are always rising.

The problem is when that correct information is adulterated with such information as computer models. These are woefully inaccurate. Indeed, as John Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, has pointed out, climate models are not just slightly inaccurate, they are 100 per cent inaccurate! Yet predictions about sea level rises are constantly being predicated on the basis of such models. That is not science. That is incorrect assumption and often biased.

Professor Nils Axel-Mörner says sea levels are dependent upon many factors, not just “climate change”. The Gulf Stream has a five-metre "bulge" and sea levels are not consistent worldwide at all.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

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