Readers' letters: Shocked but not surprised by £20,000 pay rise for ministers

John Swinney misses the irony involved in the £20,000 pay rise for SNP ministers, even going as far as to describe it as based on the principle of “fairness” (Scotsman, 15 April). I completely concur with your editorial in being not convinced.

While I accept ministers are entitled to a pay rise after 16 years of their salaries being frozen, it’s the scale of the rise, that I find unacceptable, even obscene. Ipm wondering whether he is too embarrassed to accept any pay rise for himself.

In these straitened times of minimal pay rises in both the private and public sectors, such a generous offer sends precisely the wrong signal.

First Minister John Swinney is set to turn down the pay rise awarded to ministerial colleagues (Picture: Jeff Mitchell/PA Wire)

To say the least, as your editorial rightly points out, it’s not based on performance. Cynical constituents like myself are shocked, but not really surprised.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Shameless largesse

The machinations of the SNP know no limits. Shameless does not begin to describe it. John Swinney awards £20k rises to nationalist ministers who, with the best will in the world, must be the most incompetent ever to hold public office in Scotland. Then there is the Quango Handout Department. They do not even go through the pretence of fairness and probity. Why should they start now? They never have done.

But of course, this is one year before the election, when many of those benefitting from the largesse will be on their way out and so this will be an extra wee bonus on their already gold-plated pensions.

How could we have ever let such self-centred charlatans run our affairs?

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

The real culprits

The SNP government is taking much of the blame for the pending closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery. But power devolved is power retained, and England has the majority of the power. Of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland share 107, while England has 543.

David Torrance’s House of Commons Library Research Briefing of 20 June, 2022, “Reserved Matters in the United Kingdom”, states that matters reserved to the UK parliament include “Energy”, “Financial and Economic Matters” and “Trade and Industry”. The last includes “industrial development and protection of trading and economic interests”. It is the UK Government that has the full power to save the Grangemouth oil refinery.

E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire

Key points

Your correspondents have made valid points regarding Grangemouth but the salient ones are these:

Yes, only Douglas Chapman turned up in the chamber to support Kenny MacAskill’s adjournment debate on Grangemouth.

Yes, saving Scunthorpe was vital, but what about Ravenscraig and Port Talbot? And

Yes nationalisation in vital sectors has got to be better than the monopoly capitalism version of privatisation.

There is no reason to highlight differences between Alba and the SNP any more. It could now not be clearer to your readers or indeed the general population that the Labour party’s habit of taking Scottish and Welsh voters for granted will contribute to its downfall not just in the Holyrood and Senedd elections, but in the Westminster one a few years hence.

Sadly, I fear that Wales may fall into the hands of Faragists; however, Starmer, Farage and Trump have made the case for Scottish independence crystal clear, and for that all of us – Alba, SNP, ISP, Liberation and Indy 4 Indy – are truly grateful. Bring it on!

Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Concrete in mix

The Scunthorpe steel making furnace, recently saved from closure by government, uses coking coal. There was a mine in Cumbria that produced coking coal for steel furnaces, but Ed Miliband closed it on climate grounds, and filled it with concrete. Now we will have to import coking coal.

I wonder if there is any concrete left for another more productive use that I can think of.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth & Kinross

2014 revisited

I noted that in his letter of 11 April, Professor Ronald MacDonald accepted the fact that back in 2014 the Better Together campaign had argued that an independent Scotland’s borrowing rate on the international bond market would be higher than that of Greece, which at that point in time was going through a period of considerable economic turmoil. Back in 2014, however, Prof MacDonald would not have been able to foresee that 11 years later, the UK would arrive in the situation where its interest rate on that same international bond market would be considerably higher than that of Greece.

During 2014 the professor may recall that Better Together also made two other specific arguments in their case against an independent Scotland. The first of those concerned currency depreciation. The second was that the best way to maintain our membership of the European Union was to remain within the United Kingdom. As a consequence of that advice the people of Scotland now find themselves inside a UK which is no longer a member of the EU and where the value of its currency has depreciated by 20 per cent since Brexit!

Perhaps in his next letter, Prof MacDonald may wish to contrast the fortunes of small independent nations like Ireland and Norway with that of the United Kingdom. It would be interesting to see his opinions on how they they have managed to survive and prosper without requiring the wisdom of a Westminster government to guide them.

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Rural decline

The continued decline of rural services is not just a crisis of convenience – it’s a crisis of survival.

Across our towns, villages and islands, we are seeing banks close, post offices vanish, ferries break down, roads crumble and GP surgeries disappear. Meanwhile, those in city boardrooms and government departments continue to make decisions that ignore the real needs of rural people.

While urban areas enjoy choice, speed and investment, our communities are expected to settle for second best — or nothing at all. That’s not just unfair; it’s unsustainable.

The countryside is not a museum or a holiday postcard. It is where people live, work, raise families and grow the food that feeds the nation. Yet far too often, we are being quietly written off by those who do not understand or value our way of life.

We need more than words. We need proper investment in healthcare, transport, infrastructure and connectivity – and a serious, lasting commitment to treat rural communities with respect. Rural Scotland matters. It’s time those in power acted like it.

Cllr Alastair Redman, Independent Councillor for Kintyre and the Islands, Argyll and Bute

Dissolution time?

After reading about the recent goings-on at Dundee University it reminded me of the origins of our universities in the monasteries of the medieval period and earlier.

Besides being useful centres of learning they were powerful business enterprises that dominated the local area. Universities inherited the notoriously closed inward-looking culture of the monasteries, with constant feuds and squabbles – think Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, especially the film with Sean Connery. This sums up perfectly the inner life of the modern university.

I can testify to this, having worked in three of Scotland’s universities and served on the governing body of one. Not surprisingly, this makes public oversight and accountability difficult if not impossible, to see where our money goes – events at Dundee show this most clearly. Could this be the time to ask what are universities for? And in their current form, should they continue?

John Casey, Bridge of Allan, Stirling

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