Readers' Letters: Alba's woes would sadden Salmond

Perhaps it is as well that Alex Salmond is spared the spectacle of the demise of his personal political vehicle, which is essentially what it was.

Ash Regan’s defection, to become an Independent MSP, left Alba without an elected representative at national level, after the former ex-SNP MPs, Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey, had lost their seats at the 2024 general election.

With no love lost between Alba and the Swinney SNP, it will be hard for potential Alba voters to vote SNP. They may be prepared to stomach the Greens, but the one creditable policy espoused by Alba was opposition to the Greens’ obsession with “gender” reform.

This is just another indicator that the May election in Scotland may well elicit a rather low turnout. If that happens, we will need to have a serious conversation about the value and utility of Holyrood.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Heating oil hell

Heating oil households in Scotland have been treated as fools for far too long. Now, with an election weeks away, we are expected to stay quiet while prices are doubled overnight and politicians pretend nothing is wrong. That era is over.

In January, I paid 57p per litre for heating-oil. Today, suppliers are quoting up to £1.38 per litre. A rise of more than 140 per cent in a matter of weeks is not a response to global events – it is blatant profiteering.

There is no shortage of oil in the UK. With the Grangemouth refinery closed, all oil derivatives are imported and stored at the Ineos terminal. Two wholesalers control the supply for much of central Scotland. Two. They dictate the price, and households have no protection whatsoever. This is an unregulated duopoly operating in plain sight.

A brief conflict in the Middle East does not justify doubling the cost of heating a home. Ministers have already spoken to wholesalers about price gouging, which tells us the issue is known.

Yet nothing changes, because heating‑oil users fall outside every consumer protection that applies to gas and electricity customers.

Around 24 per cent of rural and semi‑rural homes in Scotland rely on heating oil. Many include elderly residents, disabled people, and those with medical conditions requiring constant heat. These households cannot simply “transition” because it suits a policy agenda like net zero. They cannot absorb sudden, unjustified price shocks. And they will not reward silence with their vote.

Local newspapers in some areas refuse to publish criticism of the political administration, leaving heating oil households without a voice. That is why this issue must now be raised nationally. If candidates want the trust of voters in May they must explain why they have allowed an unregulated duopoly to decide whether vulnerable people can afford to heat their homes.

Before asking us to put an X in a box that secures their income for the next five years, they should answer that question honestly.

Don Williams, California, Falkirk

Taste bounty

The conflict in the Middle East illustrates just how sensitive and frail are our distribution and supply lines, as the Straits of Hormuz are ostensibly closed to shipping other than vessels flying the flag of China. Presumably the pipelines are also closed.

Is it not about time that we tried to generate our own supplies, as far as possible, to ensure we do not become dependent on materials from foreign countries?

The other point in question is: why don't we open up the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields to maintain our own oil supply, which is still needed as a feedstock – plastics and fertiliser? If we don't then we become more dependent on imports, mainly from the Middle East.

As The Donald says: “Drill, baby, drill!”

James Macintyre, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Don’t cower

In yesterday’s editorial The Scotsman endorses Sir Tony Blair saying Britain must maintain the “Special Relationship” with the USA. In normal times that may be true, but under Donald Trump and his new world order we are not living in normal times. We are living in dangerous times. Britain's interests do not coincide with Trump's interest.

So far, Israeli and US aircraft have bombed out 30 Iranian oil terminals while Iran has rendered the Strait of Hormuz unnavigable to the supertankers which carry 20 per cent of the world's oil and LPG. The oil price has reached $100 barrel and, according to a spokesman from Goldman Sachs, will reach $150 a barrel if the war continues to the month's end.

Yet President Trump has said that this is “a small price to pay for the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat”. Clearly Mr Trump forgot that he claimed to have destroyed this "nuclear threat" in his bombing campaign of Iran last June. Or that he initially claimed the reason for starting the bombing was “regime change”.

It isn't sensible for the UK to have a close relationship with Trump's administration. It should be kept at length. The UK must be seen to stand up for itself, not cower down to a bully.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Dump SNP

I find the recent forecasts of SNP victory at the Holyrood election to be thoroughly depressing.

It is difficult to see how any rational, objective assessment of their performance over the past 19 years could be viewed as anything other than a catalogue of incompetent failure. It is clear to anyone who can recall previous iterations of the Scottish government, or indeed, the UK government, that not only has the calibre of those in power diminished significantly, but in the case of the Scottish government, it appears that efficient, effective government has been a mere afterthought when compared with the pursuit of separation from the UK. It seems that every policy, every decision is viewed through the prism of their overarching raison d’etre.

This situation simply cannot give rise to the most efficacious government... so how can this sorry state of affairs be remedied?

It strikes me that as long as around one third of voters want Scotland to separate from the UK and they therefore vote for the SNP, the only way Scotland can be returned to “normal” politics is by the removal of the constitutional factor from the equation, which obviously means the removal of any organisation whose stated primary aim is the break up of the UK.

Where else in the world, after all, would an organisation whose stated aim is the break up of the sovereign state be tolerated?

It wouldn’t be easy to achieve but I believe Scotland will never be governed properly at a devolved level while the SNP is part of the process, so it must be removed.

Sadly, devolution gave it the vehicle to pursue separation and that was never foreseen, or even desired by anyone outside a very small extreme minority. Other than the proscription of the SNP, the only other solution might be the abolition of the devolved executive.

While these remedies might be seen as extreme, I see no other path to returning Scotland to government which is concerned only with the improvement of the lives of the people and not the break up of the sovereign state.

Alan Thomson, Strontian, Highland

Patients first

Jane Lax asks how the NHS can be safe in the hands of the SNP (Letters, 9 March).

After 19 years in power, the answer, sadly, is that the NHS never has been, nor ever will be, safe in the hands of the SNP. It matters not a whit whether some services are better in Scotland than in England. The question is whether the NHS in Scotland meets the needs of the customer and taxpayer, and the answer is most certainly not.

Despite the hard work of nurses and doctors in the NHS, and the extra thousands of millions of pounds poured into the black hole, the service simply doesn’t do the job. As an example, it will be up to 73 weeks before I can see a consultant about a hip problem and if a new hip is needed, a further three to five-year wait. I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, only to be told prioritisation was a matter for individual health boards. In essence, when things (rarely) go well, it is the SNP and John Swinney who claim the credit, and when things go wrong it is down to these local health boards (who happen to be appointed by said SNP).

Something needs done – and the first step would be to invest more in GP care, improving services directly and reducing the demand in A&E. Every £5 spent on GP services would save hundreds in A&E. The next step would be to require (not just allow) the NHS to use spare capacity in the private sector. The important thing here is the patient outcome, and it doesn’t matter whether that is provided directly by the NHS or sub-contracted – often at lower cost – to the private sector, as already happens with cataract replacements where the private clinics have it almost as a production line.

Finally, we must re-use where we can. The NHS in England has had an app for over a decade, while we languish behind with the “cannae use it if it’s not invented here” mentality and we struggle with an app that will provide a limited service, and only then for North Lanarkshire. Pitiful. As for walk-in centres trumpeted by the SNP just before an election? I used one when on business in London more than a decade ago.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting, unusually, is correct. John Swinney and the SNP are analogue. After 19 years of SNP Government, now is the time to switch off analogue and go digital!

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

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