Readers' Letters: Tax vices, not virtues

Earning and keeping lots of money honestly and morally is a worthy ambition. To punish that endeavour shows ignorance of the proverb about the foolishness of killing the goose that lays the mutually beneficial golden eggs.

Far better to list the vices and tax those instead. The latter include large, heavy, polluting, needlessly speedy, parking space-hogging private cars. Increase taxes on those while reducing them on their opposite smaller alternatives.

The same principle applies to needlessly large homes, conspicuous consumption and multiple home ownership.

Gambling; exotic imports; unearned income above a reasonable level (excluding stocks and shares ISAs invested in morally sound UK export/ import-saving enterprises) and other less salubrious activities are wells of wealth there to be tapped in the public interest.

A worthy secondary target is the ongoing scandal of subsidising the costly idleness, ignorance and imaginary ill-health that’s very largely avoidable under a regime using taxation tools to vigorously discourage it. If £10 notes are being handed out then the queue for them will indeed be very long. The sound socialist maxim of “from those with too much to those with too little” was never intended to reward scroungers.

Let those who protest at a tougher but fairer regime dig deep in their own pockets to fund their demands.

Personally, I think it's time annual Budgets were abandoned in favour of subtle changes in the above direction, but that’s for a different letter.

Tim Flinn, Edinburgh

Goal mouth

Your report states: “Alcohol to be sold at top-flight match for first time since 1981” (13 November).

To my recollection it was never sold prior to 1981. Plenty was carried in and drunk on the terraces but never sold. Surely it was the drinking and taking in of drink in containers that was banned.

Ian Lewis, Edinburgh

Safer power

The long-term case for nuclear power to provide our electricity is overwhelmingly strong. Relying on gas when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine won’t do because of the greenhouse gases it produces and because it will run out in the not too distant future (Neil Anderson, Letters, 17 November).

Small modular reactors have been around for many years and have been exhaustively tested in Scotland at HMS Vulcan in Caithness. When I lived in Helensburgh I didn't worry when I saw submarines powered by them steaming past from my kitchen window. Having used radioactive isotopes in virological research I have made it my business to take an interest in nuclear power and have seen the decommissioning facilities at Dounreay and Sellafield.

Much money is being spent there because safety is paramount, even though no lives have been lost through nuclear power generation in the UK, unlike during the extraction of gas from the North Sea, although it could be said that I am biased because I live in Aberdeen and still remember Piper Alpha.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Trump-alike?

Big wean. It's doubtful if Donald Trump, for all his Scottish connections, kens the meaning of the Scots vernacular which sums up his intention to sue Britain's national broadcaster for up to £5 billion. But that's what he is, a big wean – but a dangerous one.

However, Trump's politics do give an opportunity for the mainstream parties to take down Reform with its leader Nigel Farage on first name terms with billionaire Trump, and indeed, sharing his “outrage” with him a few hours after the BBC story broke. There is no “special relationship” to be preserved.

Does Mr Farage support Trump's disruption of world trade through tariffs? Does he support Trump sending troops into American cities? Will he accept $1m from Elon Musk, another of Farage's chums, if Musk again decides to bankroll Reform? Will Farage continue to back Trump if Trump bombs Venezuela? Farage's close connection with Trump and his associates begs the question as to whether Reform's policies are made in Mar-a-Lago or here in Britain.

And given the style of US political attack videos and adverts on their opponents, perhaps the Conservatives, the Liberals and Labour could do the same. It's not good, as The Scotsman reports (17 November), for Labour to pander to Reform; they should challenge their polices.

A montage of Trump with a tiny Farage in his breast pocket would do wonders for their opinion poll ratings. Or how about Nigel dressed up as Uncle Sam?

For, in an opinion poll in February this year, electors were asked, “If a politician were described as “Britain's Donald Trump” do you think that would be a good or a bad thing”? Labour voters responded by saying it would be bad (17 per cent) and 52 per cent said it would be very bad. Meanwhile, 25 per cent of Tory voters said it would be bad and 33 per cent very bad, while 13 per cent of Liberal Democrats said it would be bad and 67 per cent very bad.

I suspect these percentages would now have increased significantly.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Madness over

The recent emergency stop on the gender bandwagon in Scotland and elsewhere is a welcome return to near normality in our country. The Law has, in the end, done the trick, with the Supreme Court ruling being critical.

As well, we are told a BBC insider's memo detailing the influence and activities of an all-powerful LGBTQ+ group within the corporation revealed much and may explain the grotesque “pregnant people” newscast announcement. Thankfully, the nonsense train is now grinding to a permanent halt.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Peak Reform?

I seems crazy that the Tories, and now Labour, are pandering to Reform UK (your report, 17 November), thus allowing them to set the political agenda. Far ahead in the opinion polls, they quite possibly could form the next Government, with Nigel Farage as Prime Minister.

For those who, like myself, abhor such an outcome, there are promising signs Reform UK might unravel. Cornwall and Kent, two Reform UK councils, are suffering multiple splits and squabbles, leading to mass resignations, to the point of members leaving the Party altogether, all just months after taking power.

It's hard to believe there won't be further splits and squabbles between now and the next election in 2029.

Nigel Farage himself has a record of falling out with fellow members in a clash of super egos. Chances are that Reform UK have peaked, with a resurgent Green Party, under the charismatic leadership of Zack Polanski, overtaking Reform UK, in the polls.

With both the Tories and Labour languishing, a straight fight between Reform UK and the Greens is the likely scenario in the next election, unless the former unravels before then.

We can but hope.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Bad call?

Has the SNP made yet another bad call? It is unforgivably backtracking on women's rights and now it is backing allowing the flow of undocumented migrants crossing the Channel to continue. (“SNP: Labour ‘pandering’ to Reform vote”, 17 November).

Has it not occurred to the SNP just why Labour is cracking down on illegal migrants? Reform is way ahead in the polls for a reason. When you lose track of public sentiment you lose power. Labour realises this, the SNP does not. A rude awakening awaits John Swinney's party at the upcoming Holyrood election as both women's rights and immigration are sure to feature heavily in the campaign while independence will not.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Common cause

I am a gay man who has campaigned for LGBT equality in Scotland for 38 years now, and counting. Brian Forsyth (Letters, 17 November) claims that the inclusion of trans equality in those campaigns “erases” protections for lesbian, gay and bi people.

That is historical and factual nonsense. The whole point of sexual orientation equality is that consenting adult partners should be free to choose each other without any detriment based on what sex they are or are perceived to be. Mr Forsyth apparently wants to undo the progress we have made, by introducing rules about whether I can validly be attracted to a trans man.

Whether or not Mr Forsyth is gay or bi himself, I would point out to him that experience shows that social reactionary campaigns expand from opposing trans equality to opposing LGB equality too – for example, the current attempts to undo equal marriage in the US.

Discrimination against LGBT people reflects a wish to control what other people do, on the basis of their sex or gender. That is why LGBT people have always made common cause, as well as working together with women's equality campaigners, and always will.

Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh

Title fight

The Scotsman describes the King as “Charles III” (“Celebrations for castle and King on his birthday”, 15 November).

Although that is the title attributed to him, in fact he is the first monarch of that name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Previous British monarchs of that name did not rule the same territory.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

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