Readers' Letters: Councils need to save leisure centres

No Sales, Syndication or Archive Drumbrae Leisure Centre, Edinburgh. Neil Hanna Photography www.neilhannaphotography.co.uk 07702 246823

It is generally accepted that exercise, whether it be swimming, gym work, sports like basketball and badminton, is good for people. Indeed, it can be essential for maintaining physical and mental health and preventing illness.

Many will therefore be dismayed, as I am, by the report in The Scotsman (12 January) that most of the leisure centres in Edinburgh are threatened with closure because the council is having to make savage cuts in funding. Have politicians completely forgotten that politics is about public wellbeing, and have councillors forgotten what councils are for?

Gracemount Leisure Centre, for example, which I know well, serves a wide cross-section of people in the south of Edinburgh, where they can access the swimming pool, exercise sessions, and a huge variety of sports facilities. They don’t need to be particularly agile or even physically able to benefit from what Gracemount provides, and the friendly and efficient staff welcome old, young, infirm, poor and unemployed, and those from every ethnic and cultural background. Children from nearby schools get their first swimming lessons and gain a lifelong skill. More than a sports centre, Gracemount is a wonderful community hub, where local people can meet, learn, exercise, communicate, and even get an inexpensive lunch by having one of the cut-price meal deals provided in the busy cafe.

Community resources like this are being cut or closed down, and partly, as a result, private clubs and sports centres are booming. The difference with places like Gracemount is that these clubs are only available for the well-off, who can afford to stay healthy. Health is becoming another commodity which is only available if you can pay for it privately.

Shame on the politicians, local and national, if they allow the closure of these vital community centres to go ahead.

Julia H Scott, Roslin, Midlothian

There, there

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read, “New £200,000 initiative aims to help under-pressure Scottish schools' staff” (your report, 16 January). Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth seems to be offering teachers a “lie down in a darkened room” solution to the truly awful pressures they are under thanks, in the main, to her party's “initiatives” such as the Curriculum for Excellence, taking no action to help Rectors and teachers deal with classroom indiscipline, class sizes, and lack of teachers and support staff to cope with the growing list of pupils with special needs, to name but a few.

If Ms Gilruth really values “our teachers and education professionals” she should address these needs, asap.

Still, I bet her coaching sessions will be a lot cheaper than dealing with the underlying reasons for teachers' stress and will allow her to tick the box marked,"job done"!

Lovina Roe, Perth

Blame Westminster

Unwittingly, Martin O’Gorman makes the case for Holyrood to control Scotland’s economy rather than Westminster (Letters, 16 January). It is down to the British Government’s failure to deal with the cost-of-living crisis, including greatly increased energy and food prices, that required large public sector pay increases.

Due to the Tories decimating Scotland’s capital and revenue budget in real terms, it is impossible for any Scottish government to fund all the increasing pressures while mitigating the worst aspects of Tory austerity on the poorest in society. The UK is the second-most unequal country in the developed world, yet Keir Starmer has said he won't tax the super rich more in order to redistribute to the poorest.

Under devolution, the Scottish Government has to balance its books every year while the UK national debt has spiralled to almost £3,000 billion. The UK industrial and fiscal policies are to blame for economic stagnation. However, outside of London and the South East, Scotland has the best-performing economy and the best inward investment record, mainly thanks to the efforts of Scotland’s offices abroad.

Economists and analysts at Cambridge Econometrics have estimated that Brexit has cost the UK £140bn so far, and could see the nation £311bn worse off by the middle of the next decade. As all the UK parties support Brexit, no change of government will make any material difference.

If Ireland, without Scotland’s vast energy resources, can run up a budget surplus and set up a Future Ireland Fund, then why not an independent Scotland with the right economic policies?

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh

Good old USA

I share with Christine Jardine a keen interest in the US Presidential Election (Perspective, 15 January).

There are three basic criteria to be eligible to stand for election as US President, namely to be a natural born citizen of the US, to have been a resident of the US for 14 years and to be at least 35 years of age.

If it was thought appropriate to have a minimum age limit then why not also have a maximum age limit? By the election date in November this year, the ages of the two main candidates will be 78 (Trump) and almost 82 (Biden). They are both arguably too old to take on another four-year term as President. If they were to act reasonably and responsibly then they would stand aside and allow someone younger and more able to take their Party’s nomination. However, I suspect this may be wishful thinking on my part.

Gordon Lawson, Dornoch, Sutherland

Freedom fairy tale

“If you believe in fairies clap your hands.” said Peter Pan. From Never Never Land, Humza Yousaf asks: “If you believe in independence and want to get rid of the Tories vote SNP.”

Humza Yousaf’s grasp on reality seems to have completely deserted him. Still he bangs on about independence, although neither he nor any member of his party have ever explained in detail exactly what independence is, or how Scotland can possibly survive outwith the Union.

Doug Morrison, Cranbrook, Kent

Growth can come

Keir Starmer is silent on policies for post-general election UK. Why doesn't he admit that he broadly agrees with the Tories that governments can't afford very much, for the moment, anyway? Perhaps we need a national unity moment – when, like Churchill in 1940, we offer blood sweat and tears. Honesty about how much damage has been done since 2010 would help. Years of austerity cost us heavily in terms of low growth and poor productivity. Brexit has decimated exports and London's financial dominance.

Sadly, this analysis, while having merit, would fix people's attention on the old Keynesian solutions – which we can't afford. It would indeed be great if huge public and private partnerships led to infrastructure for electric cars being rolled out, and the same recipe led to the greening of homes and cities. It would be great if the stock market factored in the need for green investment – but will they? The danger the stock market would react to big spending, as happened with Liz Truss, is a concern. But at least with a Labour government there would be new economic ideas – instead of the old neoliberal ones which just offered tax cutting, deregulating and quarrelling with the EU yet again as the first choice of economic measures.

Chiselling out taxes on the wealthy is possibly Labour's best initial move while requesting patience and growth-focusing. Labour will not be entwined with lobbyists or right wing think tanks. And the willingness to work with the EU to promote taxing of multinationals and global policies for helping the developing world go green all have potential impact. Keynesian policies at global levels need to be encouraged. Then top-down growth can come.

Andrew Vass, Edinburgh

Inventive Scots

Arthur Herman wrote his fascinating book, How the Scots invented the Modern World, on finding that Scotsmen, or those of Scots descent, often seemed to be at the forefront of discoveries, like penicillin, or inventions like the telephone or TV. However, Mr Herman did not mention others who were also great innovators.

I was interested to find that the earliest sound recording had been made by a Frenchman in 1860. That recording of “Au Claire de la Lune” was initially played back on Radio 4 at a speed which made it sound like a woman singing. Presenter Charlotte Green burst into laughter when it was described as sounding like a bee in a jar. In fact, it was probably a recording of inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville himself. His ancestors had moved to Brittany from Scotland in the 17th century and retained the name Scott.

Closer to home, I would suggest a memorial in Edinburgh would be appropriate for James Tytler. Tytler made history when he flew a balloon from Abbeyhill to Restalrig at a height estimated to be 350 feet on 27 August 1784. This was the first ever manned flight in Britain and he made it only very shortly after the first ever such flights in France on 21 November 1783.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

You don’t say

During Humza Yousaf's visit to Aberdeen with Scottish Enterprise, their CEO said his organisation must “be laser focused on the high growth opportunities" and “strengthening our underlying performance on important areas crucial to driving our future competitiveness”.

Isn't that what they've been doing since they were formed 32 years ago?

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

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