Readers' Letters: Elderly are paying twice for their healthcare

I have recently read several media articles reporting on the need for high numbers of pensioners to delve into their hard-earned savings in order to pay for essential health and dental care, which ought to be readily available on the National Health Service. Many pensioners have diligently paid their National Insurance contributions and taxes, throughout their working lives, in the expectation that essential healthcare would be available to them in their senior years – when they most need it!

If large business corporations and other companies are able to deduct from their overall earnings the cost of essential financial outgoings, in furtherance of their business interests, from their taxable earnings, why should pensioners not be allowed to deduct the cost of private healthcare from their personal income tax? Especially when such treatment has been undertaken only because of the lack of available NHS services.

It is an outrage that the extremely high costs of private health and dental care have been allowed to rise so rapidly, and without justification, other than greed. And equally an outrage that so many pensioners, who can ill afford it, should need to meet these costs from their personal savings simply to live their later lives pain free and as actively as they are able!

Why should older people who have contributed taxes for decades have to pay for expensive, vital dental treatment, asks reader? (Picture: Adobe)

There can be few countries that allow their elderly to be treated with such callous indifference.

John Maguire, Kelso, Scottish Borders

Unbelievable

It beggars belief that all 37 Scottish Labour MPs voted down the SNP amendment to the King’s Speech regarding the child benefit cap.

To their immense credit, the Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Reform and seven Labour MPs in England were among the 103 MPs who voted for the SNP amendment. The policy was brought in by the Conservative Government seven years ago.

Major charities have long pointed out that this is the greatest driver of poverty, with 1.6 million children affected, and this does not augur well for the oft repeated claim, during the general election, that Labour MPs would be better able to speak up for Scotland. In Scotland the policy is mitigated by the Scottish Child payment, of course.

Clement Attlee must be turning in his grave.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Two will do

As most global problems are directly due to a vastly and increasingly overpopulated planet, the importance of restricting families to a replacement two is just about the most important thing that everyone can do.

A concerted effort is needed to reduce the population growth and climate change pressures that are behind so much emigration and extreme weather. Let nature recover. We are getting the planet we deserve, so let's deserve better. Two will do.

Tim Flinn, Garvald, East Lothian

Hard times

Michael Officer invited a millionaire’s perspective on a wealth tax on billionaires and millionaires (Letters, 24 July). Well I suppose I am a “millionaire” on account of the value of my London home. I wonder how many of the 2,849,000 “millionaires” he invites to bung £1,000 each into another government pot are similar to me, home rich but cash short?

Rodney Pinder, London

Let Gaelic lie

I could make a long list of worldwide problems, from wars to famine, and yet Holyrood once again proves that its walls are made of mirrors, all inward looking.

Gaelic is in a “perilous state” (your report, 24 July). Seriously? And what benefit would ensue if we all spoke that dead language? Madness reigns within these looking glass walls of power. How many millions are spent trying to resuscitate the deceased? Ambulances, police cars, road signs all written in a foreign (to 99 per cent of us) tongue.

What is the point? We are a proud people, everyone in the world knows this without having to say and write it in a language that only half a dozen folk can understand. Wouldn't it be better to spend our hard-earned tax pounds on making us all a bit wealthier, then we'd all sing praises in the same happy lingo.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Centre ground

Murdo Fraser is right in some of his analysis about politics changing in Europe (Perspective, 24 July). It is doing the same here in Scotland, but his conclusions are wrong.

Electors who vote SNP are generally, though not exclusively, former Labour voters. The two parties share a left-wing agenda and as heavy industry vanished, the former union-based, British collectivist attitudes that prevailed in the stormy days of the 1970s and 1980s realigned and the SNP moved in. The idea of independence was merely another angle to new beginnings. Devolution was the other side of the same coin and nationalism was a new flavour to taste. With the clear failure of Scottish nationalism on many fronts, left-wing Scots have rejected the SNP and are giving Labour a chance to show what they can do once more.

What Mr Fraser doesn't seem to want to acknowledge is that the “centre ground”, as he calls it, is already held by moderate Labour MPs. Conservative voters have seen attempts by Rishi Sunak's party to appear centrist, thereby losing their core vote. Just as Labour voters went with the SNP when Labour seemed to lose its way, similarly, Conservative voters in Scotland have also seen Reform as representing traditional Conservative values. They have expressed their anger at the abandonment of traditional Tory policies in pursuit of the centre ground. If you add disgruntled Reform votes to Tory votes, the right wing is representative of a lot more than one-in-eight voters. A distinct, right of centre party could gain more than the dismal showing earlier this month.

The only way that the Conservatives will regain lost ground is by moving to the right and expressing right-wing thinking.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Cruel ‘sport’

I suppose the lady from Horse and Hound magazine, who claimed that horses enjoy the grotesquerie of dressage, will also think that tigers enjoy leaping through blazing hoops, and elephants can hardly wait to stand on their hind legs for the entertainment of audiences.

The abuse of animals for sport and so-called entertainment is still widespread, and its detection and prevention has long been the work of private organisations who understand that animals are not our playthings.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross

Horrible history?

It wasn’t until I read Stan Grodynski’s letter (23 July) that I realised how much the English had subverted my understanding of Scottish history. I always believed that the first King of England and Scotland, when the crowns were united, was a Scottish King (James VI), but in fact we were really colonised by the English. Stan’s letter doesn’t say when this happened, presumably in the time of Edward Longshanks, but maybe the Darien expedition was really a great success and Scotland became so rich that England plundered and bankrupted us, forcing us into the Act of Union with a country which had been colonised by the Dutch. William III was on the throne.

Stan suggests none of England’s colonies ever wanted to return to colonial rule but then, none of them provided England with a King either or, maybe, the English left the period of history out in my education where England was ruled by one of the Mughal Emperors.

Of course, in 2008, when Scotland’s banks collapsed, and but for English support, they would have taken the Scottish economy with them, it was the English regulator which allowed the disaster to happen so England quite rightly had to pay, no matter that the Scottish Government had cheered Fred Goodwin on and recommended him for a knighthood.

Ah, well back to school

But I do agree with DW Lowden (Letters, same day), who asks “Why do we need two governments?” We don’t. We should close Holyrood down and return its powers to Westminster so that those of us who live in the Highlands can have a government which understands the rural economy, unlike one made up of Green urban dwellers in the Central Belt who can’t find the A9 on a map!

Mark Tennant, Elgin, Moray

Pie in the sky

Time and again, Scottish separatists present material in support of their pie in the sky arguments which is inaccurate and/or misleading. Such is the case with Grant Frazer (Letters, 23 July). He quotes Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp saying that if pensions increased in line with the EU, “the independence vote would rise to well over 60 per cent”.

Are people really naïve enough to support separation just because someone promises them what is in effect yet more free money from somewhere or other? We know all about the SNP’s exhaustive, frequently quoted list of freebies and handouts, funded through extortionate taxation as well as squandering Barnett Formula payments.

Most importantly, our pensions would inevitably decrease outside the UK because of the very inconvenient truth that we get thousands of pounds of annual subsidies – yes that’s right, subsidies – for every man, woman and child residing here through Westminster’s block grant.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

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