Readers' Letters: Will Scottish Labour apologise for 'reverse Robin Hood'?

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and Deputy Jackie Baillie are among MPs who misled Scottish voters before general election, reader believes (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

At long last some genuine, substantive change from Labour but, unfortunately, not the type we were hoping for!

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has suddenly discovered the fiscal black hole the SNP and IFS warned about weeks before the election and there are to be massive spending cuts.

One of the first groups to be affected are pensioners not in receipt of benefits who will no longer receive Winter Fuel Payments. This measure will, along with the refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap, help Sir Keir Starmer avoid imposing a wealth tax which would hit his billionaire donors and the rest of the super rich. What we are seeing from the new government is, in effect, a sort of reverse redistribution of wealth, with Robin Hood stealing from the peasants and handing over the swag to King John and the Sheriff of Nottingham!

The Labour Party has already broken election promises and it is clear that austerity is not going away. The question is, will Anas Sarwar, Ian Murray, Jackie Baillie et al apologise to voters for (at best) misleading them very badly?

Alan Woodcock, Dundee

Manifesto sham

The Bank of England announces an interest rate cut and at the same time forecasts growth in the UK at 1.25 per cent for this year. This is a higher rate than previously forecast. Economic statistics for the UK as compared to the Eurozone are very positive indeed and it simply begs the question as to why Rishi Sunak went “early” for a General Election?

However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, is hellbent on deriding the UK economy and is in real danger of crying wolf too often simply to justify her forthcoming tax rises and the raid on private pensions that she would not mention in the sham that was a “non-tax raising” Labour manifesto – a deception of huge proportions.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Another duffer

I absolutely agree with letters suggesting Rachel Reeves might just have handed the SNP a lifeline, though it’s not just because of the withdrawal of winter fuel payments for some pensioners.

As she stood there announcing this clawback, she tried to assume the air of someone firmly in charge but, unfortunately, came across as a politician willing to deviate from the truth – a far greater crime for a Chancellor than penny pinching. We had enough of the former with “iron fisted” Gordon Brown and enough of the latter with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Voters were clearly duped during the run-up to the election as we were promised the moon on a stick. Watching Reeves’s colleague Anas Sarwar’s lips, we were assured “no more austerity under Labour”. It hasn’t taken Labour long to fall foul of the old joke, “How do you know when a politician is lying?” I fear Labour have lumbered us with another clunking-fisted duff Chancellor.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Tackle freebies

I have to agree with The Scotsman editorial of July 31 on how the wealthy get welfare payments they do not need. Maybe there is fear of stigma for those who would actually qualify if money was means tested, but it cannot be right that people who do not need them get benefits.

It would release some cash either to cut spending, and/or give more cash to those who actually need it. Recently the Institute for Fiscal Studies produced a list of Holyrood freebies, which was large – maybe we could start here!

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Hitting weakest

So once again pensioners are easy targets. Well, why not? They are old, they are done, they have served their purpose. A liability for medical and care costs. The living wage is £11.44 per hour, equating to £20,820.80 pa for a 35-hour week. The state pension is £11,492 pa, among the lowest in Europe. Not all pensioners have private pensions but have an income just above the level to qualify for state benefits and still but have to cope with cost of living and fuel poverty. We will have to wait to see what the Scottish Government do in September but I do not hold out much hope. This could be an excuse for them.

This Labour government is no different from the previous lot. Hit the weakest. The only difference is they wear red instead of blue

James Thompson, Dunbar, East Lothian

A suggestion

Rachel Reeves claims that she requires to cease the payment of the winter fuel payments to all but those pensioners on benefits to help plug the £22 billion gap in the country’s finances. Perhaps she should consider reducing the 20-30 percent contribution rates that the Public Sector Employers make to their staff’s pension schemes.

This is a sum which will be increasing shortly due to the above inflation pay rises due to be paid to public sector workers. A small reduction in these contributions would go some way towards plugging the fiscal shortfall.

George Beattie, Glasgow

Degrees of failure

I thoroughly enjoyed Jeff Stark's piece on academic qualifications (Perspective, August 1) and my own brain resembles something of a pinball machine, swithering between finding it inspirational or cautionary. Quite obviously, he is an intelligent and talented man.

I'm a year younger than Jeff and the proud holder of four highers and two lower second class degrees. In all my exams I aimed at 51 per cent and anything above that was an unplanned bonus. I regarded my education very much as a means towards an end, in my case a call to the Church of Scotland ministry.

In our cherished Scottish education system, of which both Jeff and I are beneficiaries, albeit with reservations, everybody ends up being a failure. It's just a matter of what stage you fall off the educational wagon. This was brought home to me by a contemporary of mine who, in her own estimation, had failed, by getting, on her own terms, a bad First. Education, as I'm sure Jeff would agree, is a lifelong process in the Open University of life.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

People needed

Clark Cross (Letters, July 30) asks why our taxes should rise "to pay for other people’s children”. He asked the same question in his letter of July 17. I answered that in my letter of July 19 but he seems to pay no attention. I explained that, if they don't pay, we will run out of British people and this country will be populated only by incomers, probably from underdeveloped countries (it's because our birth rate is way below the rate needed to keep the population stable). Does he want that?

Now he claims the world population, at 8.1 billion, is “escalating out of control”. It is true that it will climb further but the UN has now revised its estimate, to conclude that by 2080 it will peak at 10.4bn and then start to decline, the first global decline since the Black Death in the Middle Ages. This projection is based on the fact that two-thirds of the world population live in countries where the total fertility rate birth (a measure of births per woman per lifetime) has dropped below 2.1, the number needed to keep the population constant.

Mr Cross has an upside down view of the world. We are not heading for too many people but too few.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

Support parents

There are several interlocking points in the letter from Stephen Moreton (August 1). I disagree with all of them. We need children to become the next generation of teachers, lawyers, builders, nurses, doctors, shelf stackers and all the other essential occupations.

We should be grateful to those of us who become parents and take on the important and demanding role of bringing children up to be good citizens.

Equally, we should all be willing to make a contribution in the form of child benefit towards their upbringing. And, since children do not make a choice to be born, this should not be just for the first two children but for all children. So, in essence, society should be willing in every way possible to support both the parents and the children It can be summed up in the African saying, “It takes a village to bring up a child”.

Helen Hughes, Edinburgh

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