Readers' Letters: Is Holyrood a disgrace to the Scottish taxpayer?

The much-heralded GP walk-in surgeries are a failure.

John Swinney jetted off, business class, to enjoy the World Cup and gave £400,000 of taxpayers’ money to a private individual’s charity appeal.

Another £500,000 given to Palestine.

Another attempt being made to drive though the SNP’s failed gender recognition policy, this time dressing it up in human rights legislation.

Debating about getting a Scottish roll Unesco status.

When are politicians going to look seriously at how to make the lives of hard-working Scots better?

Holyrood is nothing but a disgrace to the Scottish taxpayer, with yet another double-digit economic deficit being reported – far higher if you exclude oil and gas, which the SNP want closed down.

Politicians should either concentrate fully on devolved matters or close it down and debate all the things they prefer spending their time on down at Westminster, which is the proper setting for these!

Michael Officer, Bridge of Earn, Perth and Kinross

Homes for life

I partially agree with Midlothian Councillor Peter Smaill on Edinburgh's council tax hikes (Letters, 22 August); it is indeed unfair that second homes should be penalised.

For years I worked mainly abroad but had to do so from Scotland for five months of the year.

Long-term unoccupancy is quite different; these homes must be taxed into use. Let's hope that deterrence of property speculation and resultant market-cooling is the main driver behind these hikes, rather than simple revenue-generation. Houses should be solely for living in.

George Morton, Rosyth, Fife

Down the drain

In response to the letter from Jim McHugh implying household drives are responsible for water not being drained away, I must disagree completely (24 August).

When I grew up you would see the guys from the council out pulling up the heavy grates at the side of our street and clearing the debris and other detritus from the drains, then rodding along to the next ones to make sure they were all clear. I still stay in that same street and for many years have not seen anyone looking at the drains, now the water just runs down the hill against the kerbs flowing right over all the blocked drains. In my opinion it’s just another thing the councils are failing to maintain while constantly putting up council tax.

And by the way, it took them since 1990 until last year to resurface the road; but why didn’t they clear the drains at the same time, instead of allowing more surface material to go into them to compound the blockages?

The councils need to do their jobs better,

A Thorpe, Dunfermline, Fife

Face facts

David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, has demanded that the police be given powers to remove facial coverings and masks worn by those believed to be committing crimes, violence or serious disorder (your report, 21 August). He stated that there would be “little point” in investing millions of pounds in the proposed live facial recognition technology if people committing crimes could simply hide their faces.

His stance is to be applauded but why has Chief Constable Jo Farrell not raised this issue? In fact, she should have demanded the Scottish government pass legislation to ban all face coverings except on health or religious grounds, with exemption certificates granted as needed.

Those wearing masks and hoodies are mostly up to no good and are doing so to avoid detection, on bikes, e-bike and e-scooters and on foot so they can break the law without being identified as they escape.

In England new legislation has given powers to the police to remove face coverings, so it looks like the Scottish government has, as usual, been asleep at the wheel.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Train failure

When you wake up in a hotel far from your home and open your e-mail and get a shocking message that your CrossCountry train to Scotland has been cancelled, two hours before it’s due to leave, you are in a limbo, confused and annoyed.

This happened to me in Chesterfield as I was hoping to return home to Kirkcaldy on Sunday 23 August.

No information as to why it happened, which may have elicited some sympathy for the sudden electrical failure described in The Scotsman (24 August), no advice as to alternative travel, no indication whether the ticket could be used on other train lines? Searching for an alternative passage, after wasting three hours on the Trainline app, I found trains from 40 miles away from Chesterfield at Newark Northgate, but no train to go there. Ultimately I had to depend on an expensive taxi ride so I could reach work the next morning.

The CrossCountry and Trainline apps should be more helpful, compensatory and offer more guidance.

Hasan Beg, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Hospital help

While I totally sympathise with Graham Montgomery and his parking problems at various hospitals (Letters, 21 August) I can only sing the praises of car parking at the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank.

My wife had a hip replacement there two weeks ago, necessitating three visits. On our first trip from Edinburgh we found the enormous car park busy but places available. There is a huge car park at the hotel attached to the hospital which can be used as well. Our other trips were by train (Dalmuir station is only a ten-minute walk away). The hospital opened, I believe, about 20 years ago and I can only sing the praises of all concerned

Scott Miller, Joppa, Edinburgh

Dig for heat

I am sure Joyce McMillan really believes what she is writing about, but the climate has been extreme on many occasions in the past (Perspective, 21 August). The “first” 40C a couple of years ago ignored several temperatures at that level (and higher) dating back to the 19th century. Many UK climate stations are at airports and paved enclosures, giving erroneously high readings. Remember 100F at Centre Court, Wimbledon, a regular front page story 30 years or more ago?

I was unable to go up the Rhine to Basel in 1971 because it was too low. Living in Paris and elsewhere in France was to discover that the loos didn't fill up if you flushed them at night, because there wasn't enough water available to do so.

Wind-turbines and solar panels destroy agriculture, sea-beds and landscapes. They also contain poisonous chemicals, of course.

The clean alternative? Geothermal power. We have a lot of experienced former drillers from the oil industry who could help us access that constant power source, if anyone bothered.

Ms McMillan addresses a popular target for climate hate: oil companies. She refers to “the sheer lobbying power of big oil and gas-based energy companies”. Has she heard of BP? It's moving out of the North Sea due to government intransigence. So much for their “sheer lobbying power”. Oil and gas companies, worth billions to our economy, are being consciously shown the door. You couldn't make it up.

The UK's energy costs are anything from four to seven times as much as our competitors.

Never mind, though. We will feel a warm glow from our self-destructive beliefs in 2030 after shutting everything down. No warmth anywhere else, though.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

AI ambition

Scott Reid’s report that Scottish businesses lag behind the rest of the UK on AI adoption would have raised some eyebrows (“AI adoption in Scotland remains behind UK – Bank of Scotland Business Barometer”, 18 August).

It’s true that failing to invest would leave firms at a competitive disadvantage, as many of those polled fear could happen within three years.

However, higher adoption figures across the rest of the UK do not necessarily mean those businesses are seeing a return on their faster investments.

Too many companies spend heavily on AI without much of an idea about where it can actually create value.

Before Scottish businesses rush to invest out of competitive alarm, they should recognise that AI is not principally a technical challenge. It is an opportunity to help people, across the entirety of an organisation, solve specific business problems.

Only by identifying where AI can make a measurable difference, assembling the right team around those challenges, and proving value early, can businesses create a scalable strategy.

With headquarters in Edinburgh, it’s plain to a business like ours that Scotland does not lack ambition when it comes to AI, but there is some justified trepidation. The priority now must be turning that ambition into real outcomes, ensuring we do not simply spend more on AI without actually bridging the gap between adoption and real value.

Lindsay Ratcliffe, Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer, CreateFuture, Edinburgh

Low score

The BBC’s Final Score returned on Saturday. Of course it did. Six weeks after the return of the Scottish football season, English Premier League Football was back. We know our place. Plus ca change.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

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