Readers' Letters: A 'bonfire of the quangos' can't start soon enough

His plain-speaking “Entrepreneurs Manifesto for Scotland” (your report, 22 January) will hopefully be heeded by the Scottish government whose bankrolling of the profusion of quangos and commissions providing “employment” for multiple batallions of bureaucrats and ideologues he estimates are depleting the funds available to our essential public services to the tune of £20.2 billion!

Many hard-working underpaid servants in the health and education frontline services will join Sir Tom at the “bonfire of the quangos” when it is finally set alight and freedom of thought, speech and action is returned to the people in their communities and to a “house of representatives” as a modern-day reinvention of the “Convention of Estates”.

Could I suggest that first to go on the fire could be our obscenely expensive, non-democratic regional health boards with their multi layered “hangers ons” who have presided over the decimation and the demoralisation of our NHS, diverting our hard-won tax contributions from the direct care of the sick and disabled.The average member of the public would be shocked to know of the inflated salaries, expenses and the suspect “time and motion” envronment in this particular area of government profligacy.

Happily there is an abundance of vacancies on the shop floor to be filled as the present incumbents of quangos and health boards are repurposed in hospitals, schools, police forces and social services at the somewhat reduced salaries and conditions that exist there.

Some of the salary money saved may provide some modest investment capital for people who make things, or is that going too far?

Dr Andrew Docherty, Selkirk, Scottish Borders

Common cause

Brian Forsyth (Letters, 21 January) writes that “sexual orientation concerns attraction on the basis of biological sex”. That may be his personal experience (and there's nothing wrong with that), but it is certainly not mine. As a gay man, I have been attracted to cisgender (non-trans) men, and to trans men. I am attracted to the whole person, not to the letter M or F that was written on their first birth certificate. Sexual orientation and gender identity are diverse and interesting, and restrictive statements like Mr Forsyth’s really don't work.

He also writes that “trans-identifying” people have no common cause with LGB people. The use of the word “identifying” seems to be intended to suggest that trans people are not genuine, which is wrong. And in fact, the LGBT common cause has always existed.

As an example, I was one of the organisers of the “Lark in the Park” music festival in Edinburgh in 1988, held to protest against the introduction of Section 28, which banned the "promotion of homosexuality”. The festival was compered throughout by Fay Presto, the UK’s first openly trans woman magician.

I have spent much of the four decades since campaigning for equality, together, productively and gratefully, with trans friends.

Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh

Stop and think

SNP-run Scotland, 2026: next month, February, John Swinney is taking his latest fight to the Supreme Court. He wants males to serve their sentences in women’s prisons if they have self-declared a new gender. And he is putting our taxes on the line to enable this.

Many, even in his party I am certain, would prefer their taxes were spent elsewhere.

But the polls keep saying that with the oppostion parties splintered, it seems permanently, the SNP will still be the largest party at Holyrood after the May election. So, if they win the court battle, it will go ahead.

I ask only that the SNP voters who allow this to happen stop and think what is best for Scotland and for its image in the world at large.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Fractured society

For those of us who like to envisage the future as a world community where we all treasure our natural environment while respecting individual differences but treating everyone as equals, the rise of the far-right, which polarises then fractures society, has been sad and rather alarming to witness.

It is no coincidence that anti-abortion campaigners are also supporting opposition to gender recognition reforms that have proceeded elsewhere without the furore stirred-up here. Of course, the strategy of focusing on a tiny proportion of exceptions where governmental systems seem not to meet expectations is not a new tactic, and is the same cynical tactic employed by Anas Sarwar almost every week at FMQ’s in undermining Scotland’s NHS. The fact is that with a deliberately skewed gender recognition reform debate trans people are caught in the middle and suffer a lack of objective compassion while attention is diverted from rampant misogyny, leading to more women also suffering, especially those targeted by predatory men.

The same tactic was employed to promote Brexit via a deliberately distorted message on immigration which left the general population, rather than the super-rich backers of UKIP (now backing Reform UK), to suffer the consequences, and now both Tory and Labour parties stand accused of furthering the resultant discrimination as well as gross economic negligence.

When Burns wrote “A man’s a Man for a’ That” I don’t believe he intended his message to be gender-specific or limited only to those of Scottish origins.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

From bad to worse

Hard though it is to believe, in Donald Trump’s presidency the worst is still to come, according to Henry McLeish (Perspective, 22 January). In short, we ain’t seen nothing yet, including the rigging, or worse, the cancellation, of the midterm elections.

I watched in horror Trump’s hour-long rambling rant that passed for a speech at the World Economic Forum. Trump, speaking without notes, has only one speech, which is largely about himself, and his self-serving aim to make America great again.

The most significant and revealing phrase in his speech concerned his “getting on with Putin and Xi Ping”. His own aspirations to be a dictator are there for all to see. He fails to see the irony of his self-proclaimed “morality”.

Meanwhile, his farcical Board of Peace, featuring his fellow authoritarian leaders, including Orban, Netanyahu and, quite possibly, Putin, but significantly, no Palestinian, are set to carve up Gaza and the West Bank, undoubtedly, in Israel’s favour.

Yes, indeed, the worst is still to come.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Letter to America

To the people of the United States, help is on its way in the form of a return to commonsense leadership by you taking a stance to oppose an oppressive regime that denies democracy. In particular, you have the power to overthrow your leader at the ballot box.

The alternative is to see your country isolated and hated throughout the world as anti-democratic and, dare I say, colonial. Except perhaps in Russia as Donald Trump’s behaviour threatens to split Nato over Greenland. This is seen by our BBC’s Russia Editor “as a huge positive for Moscow”.

I know many don’t care who owns Greenland but it is wrong to say that their people should have no say and, like Russia with Ukraine, make some distant historical claim. If you stand up for democracy you, the American people, will save Nato and the US from Trump’s tyranny.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Beyond words

The killers Putin and Netanyahu on the Board of Peace? Who’s next? Bashar-al-Assad?

Graham M McLeod, Kinross, Perth and Kinross

Hospital silence

The storm clouds over the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow grow ever darker (your report, 22 January) This is an election year and we absolutely must have clarity from the SNP as to what happened here.

John Swinney was intimately involved, as was Nicola Sturgeon. We all know with power comes responsibility so it is incumbent upon the SNP to be open with the Scottish public and not seek to have this affair under wraps until after the May election.

Silence cannot be an option, transparency is needed. Will we get it?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Out of touch

I agree wholeheartedly with the points made by Jill Stephenson about Edinburgh City Council’s plans for George Street (Letters, 22 January).

This project is just another example of our leaders being totally out of touch with what our city needs, and thus wasting money unnecessarily. George Street and its nearby pavements should not be a priority. These plans will disadvantage many, and frankly a lot of us do not see why George Street is considered so important.

If the supposed future money from the tourist tax is to be used to benefit Edinburgh, surely much more in need of investment is Princes Street. Tourists actually go there at the moment, but may not in the future if it continues to go downhill. What then for the lucrative tourist tax?

Elizabeth Towns, Edinburgh

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, with no attachments, and avoid ‘Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters’ or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading. And please do ensure any names mentioned are correct.