Readers' letters: The Scottish Government should stay out of foreign affairs

Angus Robertson is under pressure following his meeting with Israeli deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)Angus Robertson is under pressure following his meeting with Israeli deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Angus Robertson is under pressure following his meeting with Israeli deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Angus Robertson’s meeting with the Israeli deputy ambassador and the subsequent fallout is a perfect example of gesture politics, a reader says

This comes to mind as I observe the recent coverage of the fallout from the meeting between Cabinet Secretary Angus Robertson and an Israeli diplomat. The violence and deaths in Israel and Gaza since the Hamas attacks on October 7 followed by Israel’s ruthless response, are an ongoing tragedy; every effort should be made to bring about a just peace in the region. However, Mr Robertson’s intervention has temporarily provided a lighter note.

The Cabinet Secretary, exhibiting his customary air of self-importance, has asserted that the meeting does not “represent a normalisation of relations between the Israeli and Scottish governments”. One might suspect he would have preferred to withdraw the Scottish Ambassador to Israel, but lacking such an option, he resorted to the diplomatic approach pioneered by Nicola Sturgeon in her meeting with Boris Johnson in July 2019: “You will find no photographs of me smiling about meeting the Israelis,” he says.

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Despite its self-designation as the Scottish Government, Mr Robertson is, in fact, part of a devolved administration. Foreign affairs are not within its jurisdiction. It would greatly benefit the people of Scotland if the administration focused on effectively delivering in the areas for which it is responsible, rather than holding meetings and making statements on matters beyond its remit.

George Rennie, Inverness, Highland

Gravy train

The Angus Robertson Gaza debacle illustrates painfully the ineptitude of a governing SNP cabinet, so detached from those they purport to represent, they may as well hold their cabinet meetings in Australia, or even Mars.

We pay our MSPs to heal and care for our sick, educate our young folk, provide a transport infrastructure fit for purpose and uphold the law, keeping citizens safe. After 17 years in power, this talentless excuse for a government has failed spectacularly in all of the above.

While the SNP took chunks out of each other about Air Miles Angus meeting an equally low-level Israeli diplomat, the National Records of Scotland were preparing to announce record drug deaths in Scotland, yet again. While the upcoming SNP conference debates, what the national anthem might be in an independent Scotland, patients will die in Ambulances or trolleys in hospital corridors.

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Angus Robertson, alas, exemplifies the entitled smugness of the SNP in Holyrood who treat Scotland like their personal fiefdom, oblivious to the fact they are paid by us to serve and represent us.

Mr Robertson has now attempted an apology (Scotsman, August 20) but the mealy-mouthed statement, in this reader’s opinion, was conveyed for a single reason only: to save his own skin and keep him in the first-class carriage on the gravy train.

J Lawrence, Elgin, Moray

Drug deaths shame

The announcement of an increase in drug deaths in Scotland remaining at the highest level in Europe (Scotsman, August 21) is no longer shameful and embarrassing but utterly contemptible.

Surely now those SNP supporters looking through their rose-tinted spectacles must realise that we have been governed by one of the most incompetent, inept and ineffective group of politicians in recent history.

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The litany of policy failures across all aspects of Scottish public life is too long to note but they have now exceeded themselves right across the age spectrum from young people and the erosion of education standards to pensioners losing the winter fuel allowance.

How troubling it is that this group of incompetents will remain with their hands on the levers of power until the Scottish election in 2026 and in that time they can continue to damage our country.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Blame game

To blame Scotland’s dreadful drug death record on poverty makes the same logical error as blaming roads for car deaths: coincidence is not cause.

The majority of poor people in deprived areas do not die of drug overdoses; nor do the majority of drivers using the A9 die on their journeys. Rich and privileged people also die from drug overdoses; and the A9 is inanimate, it jusit sits there. The fact that it is abused by bad luck and worse driving isn’t its responsibility. We shall never properly understand and begin to deal sensibly with either set of disasters if we lazily choose to blame the wrong factors.

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In my humble opinion, the guilty party in most deaths in either situation is far more to do with the personal background and psychology of those who abuse drugs or the road. Bad parenting, bad role models, bad habits, bad temper and impatience are the more likely culprits.

If I’m right, then society might think hard about what and how to do about those factors. We could start by ceasing to blame the wrong ones.

Tim Flinn, Garvald, East Lothian

Room for students

It's been a busy few weeks for Glasgow City Council’s planning department.

A luxury student accommodation complex with a capacity of 200 beds was approved last week for Queen Street, and another 100 studio apartments for undergraduates are to be built down at the Trongate.

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Furthermore, a 16-block building with 430 student flats is to be constructed at the corner of Renfield Street where the STV studios stood and another 300 student flats to be built at Stockwell Street.

There was also confirmation this week that the fire-ravaged former 02 Academy (older readers will perhaps remember it better as the ABC cinema) on Sauchiehall Street is finally to be demolished, with plans for student accommodation there too.

Now we have yet another announcement that another new luxury student complex is to be built at Charing Cross. This will be Glasgow’s largest residential or commercial building, with 800 flats spread across 36 floors. Students will have exclusive access to state-of-the-art gym facilities and a cinema too.

With Glasgow recently having declared a housing emergency and with young families struggling to find small, affordable flats is there not something seriously wrong here?

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If only social housing construction had been so prolific ten or 20 years ago, then perhaps we wouldn't find ourselves with the housing crisis that we have today.

There is an unhealthy obsession with building so much student accommodation in Glasgow. Perhaps the city council should look more at easing the existing overcrowding instead of rubber stamping so many new student residential projects.

No doubt the “cash-strapped” universities in Glasgow will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of welcoming so many lucrative international students.

Money talks and there’s apparently always room at the inn for welcoming new students to Glasgow…

David Fernandez, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Take note

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Andrew HN Gray has excelled himself in curmudgeonly anti-Scottish rhetoric in his bizarre defence of the UK National Anthem as used by English rugby and football teams (Letters, August 20). It is my anthem too in events when I am supporting GB, as in the Olympics. No problem with that, nothing about ghastly English team-mates. However, it is the British National Anthem and manifestly not the English one. There is nothing remotely anti-English about objecting to its adoption by exclusively English teams. It’s simply wrong.

Mr Gray's memory of Corries’concerts is also flawed. They always ended with Flower of Scotland, announced by Ronnie as the nearest thing to a Scottish anthem. My recollection was of wild cheering and a standing ovation!

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

Nuclear blind spot

I have absolutely no connection with the firm that designed the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, Babcock & Wilcox, but to say that it was responsible for the accident that destroyed it on 28 March 28,1979, as Marjorie Thompson does (Letters, August 21) is being very selective with the facts.

The Presidents’ Commission on the accident set up by Jimmy Carter concluded that although equipment failures initiated the event, its fundamental cause was “operator error” contributed to by deficient training, a failure to learn lessons from previous incidents, and control room design deficiencies, a part of the reactor complex not designed by Babcock.

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Presidential Commissions are the US equivalent of UK public inquiries. As a former chair of a UK one, I think that the US type has a big advantage – speed. Jimmy Carter ordered that its final report be on his desk not later than six months after the commission’s first meeting. Hard-hitting and detailed, it was delivered on time.

As for the benefits of the UK nuclear deterrent, questioned by Ms Thompson, Ukraine comes to mind. When it became independent in 1991 it held about one third of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal. In 1994 it agreed to return it to Russia in return for security guarantees. Need one say more.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

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