Readers' Letters: SNP is only party looking out for pensioners

The Scottish Pensioners' Forum demonstrated outside the Scottish Parliament in September, asking MSPs to recognise the burden of the cost of living crisis on older people  (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)The Scottish Pensioners' Forum demonstrated outside the Scottish Parliament in September, asking MSPs to recognise the burden of the cost of living crisis on older people  (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
The Scottish Pensioners' Forum demonstrated outside the Scottish Parliament in September, asking MSPs to recognise the burden of the cost of living crisis on older people (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Only one of the main political parties isn’t betraying pensioners, says reader

We pensioners can't stop the Westminster Government we voted for from ruining our lives – if not shortening them.

So many of us believed the promises Labour made before the last election. What did we get? Our winter fuel allowance stolen from us! Only the SNP came to our aid and will help fill the gap. Vote Conservative and they are keen to means test our pensions, which means that they are going to give us less. They seem to think we live on love and air. We remember the years of hard saving to pay our National Insurance all our working lives.

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Now another Scottish election looms. Labour has forgotten their promises before the last one. Why would they change? The Conservatives are keen to means test pensioners. Are they determined to keep us on starvation rations?

Whether you like them or not, the SNP are clearly focused on keeping us warm and alive. If we vote for them in 2026 they will push for another referendum so Scots can choose who governs them and who takes account of their needs in their own country once again.

This time, don't let's let ourselves and our country down.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh

Back union

Last week the Unite Union announced “the majority of MSPs (65 out of 129) are clear that Labour needs to reverse its irresponsible policy banning all new oil and gas licences irrespective of the impact on jobs”. This is the culmination of a year-long campaign by the union. The 65 included 27 SNP MSPs pining for the “it's Scotland's oil” mantra and all 31 Conservatives. But only 7 of 22 Labour MSPs could bring themselves to support a trade union fighting to save the jobs of working people – and the economy. Labour's 37 Scottish MPs seem equally browbeaten, legitimising SNP barbs about their “Westminster masters”, but perhaps it's not even Keir Starmer dictating play, or his emerging Scottish “mini-me” Anas Sarwar, but Energy Minister Ed Miliband. God help us – and Labour in the 2026 Holyrood elections.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Honest pledge

It is staggering that Murdo Fraser should say at a University of Cambridge event at Edinburgh City Chambers, “in 1997, we had a referendum effectively to confirm what we already knew, which was that everybody in Scotland wanted devolution and it was indeed the settled will” (your report, 18 January). Yes, 74 per cent of those who voted supported devolution. But the turnout was a mere 60 per cent – two-fifths of those eligible could not be bothered turning out to vote on this issue that allegedly meant so much to everyone. The proportion of those eligible to vote who actually did choose devolution was 44.7 per cent, fewer than half of Mr Fraser’s “everybody”.

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At the same event, SNP MSP Ben Macpherson tried to dismiss the SNP’s 2014 slogan of “once in a generation” as a “call to action” which was not to be taken literally. If this was a mere rhetorical device, it was one Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon used repeatedly.

A video on YouTube shows Sturgeon saying repeatedly that 2014 was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for Scottish secession. Now, were voters supposed to take these sayings at face value or not? If not, why did Salmond and Sturgeon keep saying them? As a mere rhetorical flourish? I think not. It was a deliberate device to assure their supporters that, should the secessionists win, as they expected to, there would be no going back.

I am content to take Ms Sturgeon's “once in a lifetime” pledge for a secession referendum at its honest intent.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Zero information

Paul Wilson states: “Healthy politics requires open debate, especially the one on renewable power and the desirability of net zero” (Perspective, 16 January). First Minister John Swinney has never addressed the fourfold increase to £130 billion over the debt to decarbonise Scottish homes. There has also been no response from the Economic Secretary to the paper, issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility, saying net zero project costs will triple UK National debt. The Scottish share of such a sum will be about £900bn, resulting in a yearly interest bill of £36bn plus, if the capital is repaid over 20 years – an annual cost of a further £45 billion.

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To date, nothing but silence from Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes over the impact on Scottish taxpayers from such projects. It’s time for the SNP to remember the words of Kenny MacAskill, that independence is irrelevant until we fix the climate (including clearing every penny of the debts).

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Stone mystery

I read with interest in The Scotsman the article about Professor Sally Foster's attempt to find the 30 remaining fragments of the Stone of Destiny (17 January). I heard some years ago that the author Nigel Tranter had one of these. He had a replica of the Coronation Chair made in silver and this small piece was inserted where the original was placed.

In his books Nigel Tranter describes a very different Stone of Destiny to the one at present on display. I wrote to him to ask him about this and received a letter explaining his thoughts on the Stone. He also advised me to obtain a book by Pat Gerber and Andrew Morris, The Search for the Stone of Destiny.

Colin J Oliver, Broxburn, West Lothian

Pointed criticism

On the BBC quiz show, Pointless Celebrities, on Saturday evening, there was a question about Mhairi Black, a senior Westminster nationalist and an SNP MP for nine years until last summer.

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Yet it seems no one could remember her, and she was a “pointless” answer.

Says it all about her and the SNP, doesn't it?

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid 'Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters' or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.

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