Readers’ letters: Caley Sleeper pipe dream on the wrong track

Might I suggest a possible menu for this travel extravaganza, starting with a hotchpot of quango in a see-through dressing, main is pie in the sky with a side of sobriquet of reality and to finish, a helping of the chieftain of the pudding race (also known as Honest John’s sour plooms).

Personally, I will await the fruition of the “talking shop” successfully forming a cunning plan with all the optimism of Lord Blackadder waiting on something of genius from his loyal serf, Baldrick!

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Football pools

John Riseley (Letters, 5 August) writes a lengthy explanation of why the Supplementary Vote system gives all voters the voice in their choice of candidate.

I, however, after reading through it, thought more of the old football pools selection method of any eight from ten.

I’m sorry, but the end result of any voting method brings the same result as first past the post – someone to fill the seat. You need only look to other countries, especially those with multi-party governments, at the length of time an agreement it takes to install a coalition government, and then the behind the scenes coercion to keep those who disagree with decisions to not leave.

I don’t like it when the party I support doesn’t get elected, but I accept the result on the expectation that the new government will get on with governing the country.

Charles Lowson, Fareham, Hants

Guga hunt

NatureScot is a camel-cased quango costing colossal amounts of coin (around £64.5 million). Camel-cased because of the “bumps” caused by the capitalisation in its modern trendy name format and quango because it is quasi-autonomous, non-governmental and very much an “organised” organisation. In fact, organised enough to meet on Monday to discuss an issue affecting the Western Isles – and making the decision to refuse permission to hold the annual guga hunt (your report, 4 August).

I personally can’t help thinking that a local unitary authority, for argument’s sake let’s call it the “Comhairle nan Eilean Siar” (obviously with a commonsensical expansion of its remit), would constitute better devolution, better democracy, and better value.

Ironically, despite the format of its name, NatureScot has more to say about the young gannets of Sula Sgeir than it has about camels. Perhaps camels are simply not sufficiently associated with the traditions, culture, and heritage of the Men of Ness.

Perhaps NatureScot could offset its cost by opportunistically selling “Wildfire Roasted Cairngorm Capercaillie”. It could become the purveyor of a rare Scottish delicacy that even rhymes with ceilidh, thus reinforcing the true Scottish nature of the organisation’s credentials.

Surely it would be a shame to see such a magnificent creature as the capercaillie simply wasted by being incinerated along with its combusted Cairngorm habitat. Right now, I think the Cairngorm capercaillie will have as much awareness of the benefit of its “protected” status as we have of the benefits of quangos.

Whatever NatureScot (and indeed the numerous other Scottish quangos) may decide surely the time has come for us Scots to have a grown-up conversation about democracy, local accountability, environmental stewardship, true devolution, and whether the multiplicity of Scottish quangos, given the evidence, is proving to be a help or a hindrance with respect to their requisite remits.

Dr Steven William Welsh, Stornoway, Western Isles

Nuclear alliance

Brian Bannatyne-Scott asks (Lettters, 5 August) “why the jackboots of the enemy have not yet pounded over say, Belgium, Italy, Norway and Slovenia” amongst other countries “lacking the cosy umbrella of an independent nuclear deterrent”.

I am happy to update him on the reasons why. We still have a treaty organisation called Nato. He may possibly have heard of it.

Nato is a nuclear alliance. Lest that needs clarification for Mr Bannatyne-Scott, it means that all members of the alliance are defended by the same nuclear defences that defend and protect us in the UK. An attack on one is an attack on all and all the nations he listed are in that 32-member organisation. The Ukraine is not, which is why Russia felt safe in attacking it.

The fact that the Russian-speaking half of the Ukraine is filled with Russians who were moved there by the Soviet Union also seems to escape him. That the Crimea was Russian until Krushchev handed it to the Ukraine in the 1950s, explains that particular problem. Both offer Putin a Sudeten excuse for his unprovoked attack.

As has been pointed out, it is impossible to disprove a negative, but the fact that Russia has not used its own nukes in the Ukraine may, perhaps be an example of the caution arising from provocation of one (purely defensive) nuclear alliance, namely Nato by a major (aggressive) nuclear-powered state, namely Russia. That indicates that MAD (Mutually-Assured Destruction) is something the Russians are very well-aware of. QED.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Could do better

The war of words over this year’s exam results is fierce as ever. The SNP is attempting to defend the indefensible (“Attainment gap persists as passes reach record levels”, your report, 5 August).

The SNP has a huge track record of under achieving in this department. The attainment gap has hardly changed and stands at 15.6 per cent in the National Fives yet Education Secretary, Mairi McAllan simply glosses over this. This is a distinct failure of Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to close this gap completely by 2026.

There is another factor that is going under the radar with the focus on attainment gaps. A 79.2 per cent pass rate in National Fives means one in five children failed.

Passes might have reached record levels but why is the SNP not mentioning the failures? Report card: Could do better but probably unlikely under the SNP.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Wrong focus

As someone who started studying for an HND in chemistry at Fife College of Technology in same year that I obtained my driving licence I would have thought most folk might understand that having a chemistry qualification doesn’t entitle you to drive a van.

However, as exam results day comes around every year the almost endless discussions on narrowing the poverty-related attainment gap resumes.

Given that we need both industrial chemists and posties, folk to deliver the mail and collect it, can someone explain what the attainment gap is and why society can’t just value folk for whatever they attain and whatever their role in society?

Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire

Irony alert

It is simply not credible for the SNP to call for the abolition of the oil and gas windfall tax following the decision of BP to quit the North Sea. This from a Scottish government which has consistently been against any new drilling in the North Sea.

However the loss of a by-election in north-east of Scotland, the huge loss of oil and gas jobs – and this combined with BP’s departure from the North Sea – means John Swinney changes his tune in an instant. He and his hapless party have done more to squeeze the life out of north-east Scotland than any tax or commercial business decisions.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Police numbers

Police numbers have fallen again on the SNP’s watch. The promised additional 1,000 officers which they did actually deliver ten years ago, are now a dim and distant memory, with police numbers down yet again this year. The low numbers don’t tell the full story though. Long-serving police officers were encouraged – actually enticed to leave with enhanced pension rights – and they have been replaced with officers either in training, or with little or no experience. Good as these officers might be, they cannot provide the service to the public that an officer with ten or twenty years’ experince can.

We will, naturally, get a Scottish government response of “we have more officers per capita than England”, which ignores geography, ignores the fact that most patrols in England are single-crewed whereas patrols in Scotland are typically double-crewed, and ignores the fact that many officers here are now doing jobs that were previously done by lower-cost civilian staff.

If the SNP wasted less money on promoting independence, failed court cases, ferries, special advisors, trying to provide school bags the vast majority of parents want to provide for their own children, and a bloated civil service, there might be money to invest in growing the economy to provide the tax revenue to improve our public services while helping those who need it most. Sadly, after 20 years of incompetence, it seems unlikely the leopard will change its spots.

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won’t print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, and in the body of the email – no attachments – and avoid ‘Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters’ or similar in your subject line. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading. No poems.