Readers' Letters: Why would people in rural areas support SNP?

People outside the Central Belt and the SNP make unlikely bedfellows, reckons reader

Alistair Grant reports (27 June) that the SNP is closing its electoral gap with Labour – well, just a little. Apparently, Labour’s renewed grip on the Central Belt holds firm, whereas the implication is that the SNP is holding up or strengthening in other parts of Scotland. This is a bit of a mystery. Why would those in the west, north of the Central Belt, support the party which, in government, has failed them so badly on the ferries that are, for many there, their lifeline?

Further east, why would voters support the party that has failed to dual the most dangerous road in Scotland, the A9, among others? Why would those in the north east support the party that is obsessed with net zero and has declared against new fossil fuel development? The SNP’s wishy-washy policy on new oil and gas exploration with “we’ll consider every proposal individually”, without revealing the criteria it will use to make a judgment, does not look promising for the north east.

For the rest of us, serial and oft-rehearsed SNP failures in government, not least in partnership with the Greens, are enough motivation to oppose the return of SNP MPs. Is there some benefit that the rest of us don’t know about that the SNP has brought to rural Scotland that keeps the inhabitants voting in SNP MPs? I should be genuinely interested to know what, if any, it is.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Tragedy and farce

A new Savanta poll puts the SNP and Labour neck and neck in this bizarre campaign (your report, 27 June).

Lord Heseltine anticipated it would be “the most deceitful election in modern times” (27 May) and after the last leaders’ debates the SNP Depute Leader called it “a fraud”, exemplified by the main parties’ dance of the seven veils around Brexit and austerity. Even voters in England see through the facades. One called Rishi Sunak “a mediocre prime minister” and charged Keir Starmer with “having his strings pulled by senior Labour party figures” asking, rhetorically, if these were “the best leaders our great country has got?” In Scotland the answer is clearly No, but the first-past-the-post system will, once again, fail Scotland and its demand to reverse Brexit.

To paraphrase Marx: “elections repeat themselves, first as tragedy, then as farce”. For the last 15 years Scotland has rejected Westminster governments which delivered austerity; a hard Brexit; corruption and administrative incompetence on a staggering scale during Covid; a cost-of-living crisis; and weak leadership and arms sales during Gaza’s agony. That’s the tragedy.

The two main Westminster parties are the farce. The PM snubbed veterans, and Europe, at the D-day celebrations; told voters facing a cost-of-living crisis he understood deprivation having “gone without Sky TV as a child”; and the betting scandal was pioneered by Sunak’s £1,000 wager with Piers Morgan about getting migrants on planes.

Starmer has abandoned his commitments on green energy, free tuition and other priorities that affect people’s lives; and put “wealth creation” at the heart of Labour’s manifesto. Will a family dragged into poverty by Labour’s refusal to remove the two-child benefit cap feel included in this “wealth”? Labour winning back former Labour seats is the easy part; a Westminster Labour government will find it more difficult than in 2014 to sustain a Tory-Labour “better-together” alliance on independence. Ignoring Scotland’s demands to get Brexit “un-done” will be even harder.

Geraldine Prince, North Berwick, East Lothian

Poor choice

Andrew HN Gray (Letters, 19 June) rightly criticises Labour's reality deficit anent our educational sector and our continuing need for oil. But while the Conservatives hardly deserve re-election, there are many reasons to be concerned about any Labour government.

Labour supports votes for children of 16, an increase in trade union officialdom's powers, the tax on private education which will favour the very rich and best-known and mainstream schools, more supposedly “independent” quangos, and a ban on trail hunting with hounds, among other follies. Many of its MPs would support increased wokery (in gender zealotry, cancel culture, no platforming, so-called diversity and “decolonisation”) and maintaining the imbalance between public and private sector pensions. Will its MPs have a track record of non-political real world experience?

Sir Keir Starmer scorned Rishi Sunak's proposal for a new form of national service as a “teenage army”, which would seem to negate any rationale for his votes at 16 obsession.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Flying high

I trust that Edinburgh will not allow concerns over the impact of the Tattoo flypast to develop into a ban on this much-loved and admired Royal Air Force performance (your report, 26 June).

On the scale of global aircraft emissions, the flypast is but a pinprick. Is the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to be targeted as another environmental impact scapegoat? If only we could adopt a wider approach, focused on the major priorities for our city’s best future welfare, and refrain from "cherry picking” on a prestigious event for which the flypast provides great pride and pleasure in achievement. I sense a threat to the City’s fireworks coming next! Just closing doors is rarely the best way to deal with problems. Care must be taken before we remove heritage and tradition, and thought given to the implications; there is always the risk that we lose more than we gain.

Deirdre Kinloch Anderson, Longniddry, East Lothian

It’s Scotland’s water

I always thought London tap water tasted awful. Now, I read the rivers and waterways of Southern England are polluted by sewage and those who live there should drink bottled water like travellers to a third world country. Before the new government at Westminster thinks of stealing Scottish water like they grabbed our green electricity and oil and gas we should send down a Tartan Army to back Stephen Flynn as he says No to Westminster as he did to their offer to build another nuclear reactor in Scotland.

Tory and Labour voters in the rest of the UK will decide on who governs at Westminster but Scots can give Scotland a voice by voting SNP. We did it before. Let's do it again.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh

Artificial high

A new word has entered the political lexicon courtesy of the Prime Minister. According to my Collins English Dictionary, monomania is “an obsession with one thing or idea”. It could be argued that Westminster and the three Scottish branch offices have a monomania about Unionism. Either way I do not wish to be called a monomaniac any more than a “subsidy jock”.

Scotland has two governments, each responsible for different parts of public spending. For example: the UK Government (UKG) manages defence, pensions and international relations for everyone in the UK – reserved matters, while the Scottish Government (SG) runs policing, health and education services in Scotland – devolved matters. The public sector plays a larger role in our economy, making up around 50 per cent of Scotland’s GDP of £212 billion.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), during 2022-23 tax revenue generated in Scotland, including North Sea oil, amounted to £87.5 billion (8.6 per cent of UK total). During the same period, Scotland “benefited” from about £106.6bn in public spending. These were both more than Scotland’s 8.2 per cent population share of the UK. As a result, Scotland’s total deficit was £19.1bn or 9 per cent of its total GDP, while the UK-wide deficit was 5.2 per cent of UK GDP. In 2022-23 the UKG “managed” around 41 per cent or £44bn of Scotland’s public sector spending. Using ONS figures, this means half of Scotland’s tax revenue is spent by the UKG, over which Scotland has no say or control, and this gives an artificially high estimate of our total deficit. How democratic is that? This cash would be far better spent in Scotland by the SG on the Scottish NHS and infrastructure.

D W Lowden, Mannofield, Aberdeen

Freedom road

In his letter of 25 June, Dr Calum MacKellar, replying to Prof Ben Coleman's recent letter supporting Assisted Dying, stresses the importance of “individual autonomy”, the individual's freedom to decide what is best for them. Most of us have no problem with that. But, Dr MacKellar ignores the fact that in an-end-of-life situation, the individual in question has often, through disease or increasing mental incapacity, simply lost the ability to make that decision. To deal with similar situations in the legal field, lawyers long ago came up with the sensible concept of the Power of Attorney. I steadfastly refuse to accept that it is beyond our wit or understanding to put together a tight system of checks and balances which would eradicate all possibilities of the principle of Assisted Dying being abused.

Dr MacKellar is not a medical doctor. Nor, it would appear, has he experienced the trauma of watching a loved one in an end-of-life situation struggle for three days and spend her last few hours in severe distress. pleading for help. He tells us compassion in Latin means “suffering with someone”. “Compassion” is not a Latin word. It is an English word derived from the Latin verb “compatior”, the wider meaning of which is "to take pity on".

Away from the subject of Assisted Dying, Dr MacKellar is on record as suggesting that same-sex relationships “hurt God”. Apparently his support for “individual autonomy” is somewhat selective.

D Mason, Penicuik, Midlothian