Readers' Letters: SNP politicians more interested in being 'celebrities'

A reader suggests senior SNP politicians are more interested in courting celebrity than serving their constituents

Just two articles about our current and a former First Minister, both still serving politicians at the end of a week where “one million NHS waiting list backlog is branded terrifying” and we experienced the “coldest January night for 15 years” when temperatures in Altnaharra dropped to -18.9C and the SNP government have taken the winter fuel payment away from pensioners as they used the money received to cover other costs.

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I remember a time when politicians were interested in making lives better for those in their constituencies when times were bad. I am sure there are many working away from the media doing their best but they are few and far between.

First Minister John Swinney addresses Holyrood during the first First Minister's Questions of the new year (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)First Minister John Swinney addresses Holyrood during the first First Minister's Questions of the new year (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
First Minister John Swinney addresses Holyrood during the first First Minister's Questions of the new year (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Being an SNP politician nowadays is more about being a “celebrity” and having an opinion on everything rather than actually serving the public. Maybe the two mentioned above could get on with the day job.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Pot and kettle

Stephen Flynn’s accusation that Labour is “increasingly clueless and incompetent on the economy” (Scotsman, 11 January) is rich given the SNP’s failure to get Scotland’s economy out of first gear for the last 17 years while Labour has been in power for barely six months. Yes borrowing costs have soared but that is a global phenomenon due to worries about Trump’s protectionist measures affecting the world economy. The UK as a major trading nation is more exposed to that threat. The idea that we are facing a renewed cost-of-living crisis as Flynn suggests is misleading. Many on low incomes and benefits are still living between paychecks – for them the crisis never went away. Flynn may feel more comfortable with his 5.5 per cent pay rise but others have not been so fortunate.

Anyone voting Labour expecting sustained growth by now was misguided. The economy has barely grown for the last five years and Labour had no wriggle room to pump prime the economy with a Keynesian-style stimulus. Whether increasing employers’ National Insurance was the best way of raising money for the NHS is questionable, given it will mitigate growth, but no opposition politician has suggested a viable alternative. Mr Flynn may have preferred a supertax on those earning over £43,600 annually, as we have here, but that only ensured the gap between UK and Scotland GDP per head has widened.

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While it is too early to chastise Rachel Reeves’ policies, those who voted Labour should have been mindful of the last Labour government’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, declaring in 2010 “I’m afraid there is no money”. Instead they believed Labour’s “big bet” on growth. That looks less likely now that Trump is set to stifle free trade.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Drowning in debt

Coming into the New Year, international investors have taken a hard look at UK Inc and judged it to be a higher risk bet due to on-going concerns over inflation, low growth, and historically high levels of government debt.

This is reflected in the yield on ten-year UK Gilts (government bonds) – a key benchmark for the general cost of borrowing – which has risen more or less continuously to 4.8 per cent following Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget. (The yield was only 0.5 per cent in the middle of Covid in 2020, and borrowers’ nerves jangle when it moves north of 4.5 per cent.)

As a result, life for Reeves is set to become even tougher as the expected headroom of £10 billion to help fund day-to-day public expenditure disappears like ice in the Saharan sun, forcing a trade-off between service cuts or more tax rises at some point in 2025.

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Our national debt stood at £2.7 trillion (yes “trillion”) in 2024, or 98 per cent of GDP. The £30bn budget hike in government borrowing will ratchet this higher. It costs the taxpayer over £100bn simply to service government debt. And this over-bloated debt bubble continues to inflate at an estimated £5,170 per second.

“Be no man’s debtor” was a biblical principle that used to have a very practical resonance for guiding our approach to financial management. Words now fail regarding our indebtedness woes and the “deadweight effect” it is having on our growth prospects. Perhaps the German word “schuld” meaning both “moral guilt” and “financial debt” says it all.

Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire

Gunboat diplomacy

In the 19th century, when Britain was an imperial power, we used to employ “gunboat diplomacy” effectively.This meant a coastal country, which had fallen foul of this country, would suddenly realise that the Royal Navy's formidable assets had arrived offshore. It concentrated minds wonderfully.

Could we still use it today? Nato is a defensive alliance set up in 1949. If one of the 32 nations is attacked, the rest are bound, collectively, to go to their aid.

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Denmark was one of the original 12 members. It is fully committed to Nato’s military missions. One of its autonomous territories is Greenland. Now a foreign power, irrationally, is threatening to use military force to take Greenland.

We should revisit gunboat diplomacy – ie send a Vanguard Class nuclear missile carrying submarine, with its Trident missiles, to ward off any aggressor.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Lynx effect

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland must be in line to win the next Nobel prize for science, having done so much to further our understanding of human evolution by finding the missing lynx.

John Wann, Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

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