Readers' Letters: Edinburgh City Council could solve Swinney's cash problems

I have good news for Mr Swinney: all he has to do is take a walk up the Royal Mile to the City of Edinburgh Council’s offices where his colleagues there will explain how to access such astronomical funds in spite of having huge debts.

CEC's latest financial chicanery is to allocate more than £3bn to fund a pie-in-the-sky tram scheme. Indeed, they are in the throes of establishing a consultation and business case process at an outrageous cost of £45 million. This before a single piece of tram track is laid. And despite CEC having their own multi-million pound budget black hole.

I am sure Mr Swinney's CEC colleagues will be only too happy to share their financial expertise with him

David Steel, South Queensferry, Edinburgh

Grim future

According to Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce an average of 1,000 oil and gas jobs could be lost per month by the end of 2030, a total of almost 50,000. That's the equivalent of 125 Grangemouth refineries each sacking 400 employees, but there hasn't been 125 times the outcry.

Neither is there likely to be anything like the £200 million financial aid the Government has promised to help Grangemouth's “transition”. On the basis of jobs lost they should be providing £25 billion to Aberdeen. I doubt it.

Mind you there's a lot of scepticism about the £200m ever appearing anyway.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Move Marine

Congratulations to BAE Systems and their team in securing the order against competition for £10 billion for the new Norwegian frigates.

Could someone now step up and get the SNP Scottish Government to gift Ferguson Marine to BAE Systems to increase their fabrication capabilities on the Clyde under their management? Economy Secretary Kate Forbes should also stand up and be counted and include in the transfer the £14 million that was to go to the yard to update it and let BAE decide what investment is required.

The Ferguson Marine workforce should also lobby the SNP government and unions for a transfer to BAE as a pathway to ensure their continued shipbuilding employment on the Clyde.

All those in power should take this opportunity to support expansion of shipbuilding on the Clyde and rid the Scottish taxpayer once and for all of Ferguson Marine and its disastrous mismanagement under the control of the SNP government.

Robin Jack, Edinburgh

No celebration?

After the SNP's catastrophic record in handling the building of a couple of ferries, it is understandable that they would rather keep quiet on the subject of shipbuilding on the Clyde. Has anyone heard a peep from them on the news about the new warship contract? Any other country or region in the world would be shouting it from the rooftops as they waited for the new orders to flood in.

A £10 billion contract from Norway for the Clyde's world-leading warships is hard to ignore, even for the SNP, especially with their anti-defence spending record. They prefer to flaunt their peak fare rail “cut” – peak fares which they, in fact, imposed.

It proves once again that if the SNP are not involved, our country could once again flourish.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Zealots ahoy

Anent the letter from Neil McKinnon (1 September), as a founder member of the Ecology Party, later the Green Party, and now the Scottish Green Party I can confirm that from the very beginning we were aware of the triple problems of attracting “carpetbaggers” (persons who would join any party that provided them with a chance of becoming a Parliamentarian); single-minded zealots who wished their enthusiasm to become the party’s no matter how absurd; and the risk of the party conference being taken over by attending zealots at the expense of the wishes of the non-attending membership as a whole.

To offset the last there was a rule that all new policies agreed by conference must also be agreed by a majority of the entire membership via a postal ballot. Had this safeguard been kept in place after I resigned for personal reasons I suggest the Scottish Green Party would be held in much higher public regard than it is now.

I’m sure the late Les Spoor, who founded the party in his kitchen, must be turning in his grave at how things have turned out.

Tim Flinn, Edinburgh

SNP decline

John Swinney, and what is left of serious contenders for places in the Scottish Parliament following the Spring 2026 Holyrood election, will most certainly not be in a position to form a government. They will have to be content with places on the back-rows, so to speak.

My prediction is that following the election there will be a Labour/Liberal coalition in power, as was the case at the inauguration of the Parliament all these years ago. No doubt glitzy Reform will also take a number of SNP constituencies.

The SNP is in serious decline. Gone are the so-called glorious days of conferences and “tartanalia” in marches and other such events. The key figures have either died, or disappeared into obscurity.

Scotland certainly needs a new start. It has been subject to the extremisms of the SNP for far too long, and needs time to recover. Hopefully 2026 will be marked down as a fresh start politically for Scotland.

Robert I G Scott, Ceres, Fife

We need PR

When I first voted in the 1965 general election at the age of 21, there was a choice of three parties, Labour, Conservatives and Liberal. In the coming election, 16-year-olds are entitled to vote and are faced with a choice of at least seven parties.

This multiple choice makes a mockery of the first-past-the-post system, by which Labour won the last election by a landslide with a mere 34 per cent of the vote. The present polls indicate that Reform UK, through this absurd system, could win with even less, a paltry 30 per cent. Keir Starmer's legacy could well be either Nigel Farage as prime minister or proportional representation. At least 60 per cent of the population support it. A system of PR is already in place in the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and is currently being debated for City Mayors. Surely what is desirable for Mayors should be desirable for Westminster too.

I wholeheartedly support voting for 16-year-olds, but worry about their early disillusionment through a wasted vote. PR would ensure that every vote counts, not least for the minority parties.

That, surely, is vital for democracy.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Not dead yet

I recently spent three nights in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for a heart procedure, and I just want to thank, publicly, all the doctors, nurses and support staff for their fabulous care and attention.

Our politicians love to use the NHS as a plaything to criticise the other parties, and it must be infinitely demoralising for our heroic health workers to be forever told they are broken, dysfunctional, neglected, useless etc. Remember when we all clapped the nurses during Covid? How quickly we have forgotten that!

My treatment was exemplary, and the friendliness and commitment of all the staff was overwhelming. The NHS needs more support and more money, but let's not confuse bad management with bad care. Our NHS in Scotland is still pretty good. People are living longer, science has found more ways to sustain that longevity, and so inevitably, the service is under threat. My treatment would not have been possible 15-20 years ago, so I would not have lived to fight another day. I, for one, am grateful for that!

Let's also not forget the huge benefit of living in Scotland and being ill. Free prescriptions, free parking at hospitals (an utterly fantastic boon which we don't celebrate enough) and a workforce committed to our welfare from top to bottom.

Thank you from the bottom of my now better-functioning heart.

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

How dare they?

I wonder how the families of the 457 British troops killed, and 616 left maimed with life-changing injuries, in the Afghan conflict, felt, on Monday, as the Taliban government came cap in hand asking for British aid after their tragic earthquake?

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing. Fife

Was it genocide?

I have one question. During the Second World War the Allies conducted a series of fire bomb attacks over Germany which targeted, unlike the IDF, civilians.

In February 1945, over two days, an estimated 25,000 people were killed in Dresden, a city full of refugees. Was this a genocide?

Lewis Finnie, Edinburgh

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