Readers' Letters: SNP government has total disregard for women’s safety

The SNP voted for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill in December 2024 which would have, among other things, allowed men who were awaiting trial for a sexual offence to change gender and if convicted be sent to a women’s prison. Fortunately the UK government blocked this bill as it would have impacted on the Equality Act, and the Supreme Court confirmed that in the Act, sex is defined by biology. The SNP, in spite of the rulings, refuse to remove men from the women’s prison estate. For Women Scotland are currently arguing at the Court of Session to force the SNP to stop this practice.

This week the Patient Safety Commissioner spoke out in a Holyrood committee on female patients having to lock themselves in their rooms due to being concerned about men who identify as women on their wards. Being in hospital can be one of the most vulnerable occasions a woman will have without having to experience male patients on the same ward.

We also have the SNP refusing to back the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill, which would make it an offence to pay for sexual services, rather than making the (predominantly) woman offering sex the criminal. The majority of women who are prostitutes have not dreamt of this career as children and have fallen into it out of desperation or been forced into it against their will. Why would the government not wish to protect these women?

Why does the SNP put the needs and wishes of men above the rights and safety of women? Hopefully we can have a government that stands up for women in Holyrood come May and not have five more years of being treated with contempt.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Doctors’ burden

The recent doctor burnout prevention report from MDDUS (“Doctor burnout prevention report a blueprint for change”, 2 February), developed with input from an expert group including BMA Scotland, demonstrates the importance of wellbeing for doctors. This is even more significant in the context of an NHS where the demands on all staff have been ever increasing in recent years.

Providing doctors with the opportunity to achieve a genuine work-life balance, supported by appropriate staffing levels and manageable workloads, allows them to deliver the highest standard of patient care they can, benefiting patients and the NHS as a whole.

However, a recent survey of Scottish consultant and Specialty and Associate Specialist doctors also highlighted deeply concerning findings which show the urgent need for more focus on support and wellbeing. One in four doctors said their workload was unmanageable and two-thirds said work was harming their wellbeing. General practice has also been starved of resources for years and, while steps are now being taken to address this, major work and ongoing progress is still required to reduce excessive workloads.

Burnout, stress, ill-health and absence are being experienced far too often by doctors today, which not only results in lost working days and increased economic costs due to absenteeism and presenteeism, but also risks the loss of essential staff as doctors are forced to reduce their hours or leave the NHS altogether.

Recognising the need for safe and sustainable workloads for all doctors will lead to improved wellbeing and safer services, and this report from MDDUS is an important contribution to the discussion. Prioritising the wellbeing of doctors must be at the heart of any strategy to improve the NHS in Scotland and to safeguard both doctors and patients.

(Dr) Iain Kennedy, Chair, BMA Scotland, Edinburgh

Brexit serial

When reading Brian Monteith's articles gloating about the rise of Reform it's worth remembering that both he and Nigel Farage were enthusiastic advocates for Brexit. That's going well, isn't it?

Michael Grey, Edinburgh

Drop your ‘Celt’

Scottish nationalists often talk of Scots being “Celts”. There are many attempts to convince everyone that somehow, Scottish nationalism is “nice” and “welcoming” and not racist at all. Honest, guv.

The fact of the matter is that we Scots are no more of one people/race/kind, whatever you want to call it, than the people who live next door. Let's give them a name, shall we? Yes. The English. The champion of Englishness by bloodline is Alfred the Great. Indeed, the Scottish kings were very proud of being the only royal family in Britain to descend from the Wessex line when England was under Norman rule. Yet Alfred's ancestors had non-English names.

Equally, for all his talk of some weird “Celtic” kinship between Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish, Grant Frazer (3 February) carries a Norman French name. My own is Old English. Both are very common Scottish surnames. Indeed, Scotland is an amalgam of Britons, Picts, English, Scandinavian, Gall-Gael, Norman, Flemish... “Celts”, we are not, and equally, the English aren't “Anglo-Saxon”. We all are, however, most definitely mongrels.

In fact, when all the various peoples who have settled in our contiguous countries are counted and then the resultant hotchpotch is further mixed from 1707 onwards, a better description of our combined ethnicity is Heinz 57. Let’s call it something less commercial. How about, “British”?

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

A great teacher

I read with interest Fiona Shepherd’s fine and warm obituary of the excellent songwriter and English teacher Adam McNaughtan (29 January).

I intend no disrespect to Rutherglen Academy or Cathkin High, but for some years Mr McNaughtan was Principal Teacher of English at Dalziel High School, Motherwell, where he had a positive impact. For one thing, he encouraged his pupils to explore areas of literature not normally covered by exam classes – thanks to Mr Mac, I did my Sixth Year Studies English dissertation on the novels of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, not at that time (and perhaps not now) a household name in Lanarkshire.

And his sense of humour was ever-present: during a break in rehearsals for the play we were doing in the annual Drama Festival, one of the girls noticed that he had nothing to eat. “Adam, would you like one of these apples?” she inquired. Instantly he replied, “Not after all the trouble it caused last time, thank you.”

He knew the Garden of Eden as well as Camlachie, and we were the better for knowing him.

Andrew Barker, Dalziel High School 1968-1973, Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Tickets, please

As the new Six Nations Rugby Season begins, I have written to the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) to highlight the near-impossible task of purchasing Murrayfield tickets as a legitimate home supporter after the general sale of tickets has completed.

Historically, tickets were easily obtained through online pre-sale and club outlets but the general sale has been infiltrated by effectively “decriminalised” online reselling businesses.

It’s unclear how this market is continuing to be exploited, given electronic ticket tracking and the SRU’s contracted, legitimate, reselling company Ticketmaster addressing this loophole.

Tickets are sometimes inflated tenfold their face value, making them unaffordable for many rugby supporters and effectively putting the sport under corporate entertainment control.

Perhaps the issue lies in the resell market being overlooked in favour of non-rugby “supporters” who only take a glimpse at the rugby between pre-match Champagne and canapes and post-match flights of whisky.

Neil Goudie, Cambridge

Precious picture

Just as an art gallery gives folk the valuable chance to get absorbed in a painting and forget all else, likewise a good photograph.

Such was the Picture Gallery shot by Lisa Kirkland (3 February).

The viewer is immediately walking across the soft sand, transported over the water and beyond, becoming oblivious (for a cherished few moments anyway) of all the issues of the world’ from which we seem unable to escape – unless we take time to stop and stare. Thank you.

James Orr, Pathhead, Midlothian

The gall

You have to admire the gall of the SNP (“SNP demands full Mandelson inquiry amid police reports”, 3 February) The SNP's Stephen Flynn, seeing an easy target, could not resist this attack on Peter Mandelson. Mr Flynn has, remarkably, forgotten his own leader, John Swinney, is currently trying to fight off serious accusations regarding Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth hospital.

The SNP just never exhibits common sense. It thinks it can divert attention away from a problem by highlighting another. Schoolboy politics.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

The irony

Oh how deliciously ironic. SNP Ministers demanding an inquiry into a failed politician having “no recollection”. You couldn’t make it up!

Brian Petrie, Edinburgh

The reason?

I know why Peter Mandelson was photographed without his pants on – they were on fire at the time.

Alastar Paisley, Juniper Green, Edinburgh

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