Readers Letters: Asking for answers is not the same as attacking SNP voters

I could not disagree more. Nicola Sturgeon led a cabal which put secrecy at the heart of government while promoting transparency. Along with John Swinney she promoted the “nothing to see here” argument. Swinney, who still declines to do any further investigation into how £400,000 was embezzled from SNP funds – which included allocations sent by the taxpayer – simply saying the processes have improved and such a thing could not happen again. Sturgeon, the same person who “no commented” her way through her police interview; the same person who promised transparency, but deleted all the Covid WhatsApp messages. “Nothing to see here again”, only because everything was deleted.

This is not good enough. The party is a major recipient of taxpayer funding, albeit significantly less after the loss of so many MPs at the last election. When taxpayer and donor money is involved, why is the SNP so terrified of an independent investigation? It surely can’t be the word “independent”? Perhaps it is because, as many suspect, the rotten autocratic culture at the heart of the SNP will be exposed.

Unfortunately, because in the eyes of the SNP voters nothing matters but independence, they are quite happy to stick with the party whatever they do, whereas supporters of other parties tend to be alienated by misbehaviour, as was seen in Boris Johnson’s time.

Mr Smith, the alleged attacks on Ms Sturgeon are not attacks, they are simply legitimate questions that need to be answered, and the SNP has proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted to answer questions honestly themselves.

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

Unfair system

Stuart Smith fails to address the question as to how all five opposition parties at Holyrood were short-changed by the current voting system.

An assessment, on a votes to seats won under the present system, highlights the fact that they all received fewer seats than their voting share implied, while the SNP were the only party to win more seats, around 20 in total, than their support from Scottish voters indicated.

That raises the question as to why Holyrood did not adopt a similar system to that introduced by the Welsh Assembly.

It is only a system that would make even supporters of the Westminster rotten boroughs of the 19th century blush with shame that allows the SNP to claim they have a mandate from the people of Scotland.

When will politicians at Holyrood put Scottish voters before party and reform the voting system in line with their Welsh counterparts?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Small beer?

I see it is suggested that the aim of any inquiry into the Peter Murrell affair by politicians should be to find out how he did what he did.

I would have thought this was something the Crown Prosecution Service would want to know in detail before sanctioning such a serious charge as embezzlement, so there would seem to be no need for further inquiry.

What it might be useful for MPs/MSPs to consider is what further requirements all political parties should have to meet to be allowed to extract money from the public or receive money from the public purse.

Incidentally, to put our local stooshie in a wider context I see from a report in the Times that a high-ranking officer in the CIA was able to walk away with $40 million in gold bars, $20m in cash and “about 35 watches” (value unstated).

S Beck, Edinburgh

A big sea

After making a career out of telling us how dreadful England and the English are, Nicola Sturgeon reportedly decides to up sticks and go to London to write her debut novel.

One might have thought she would have preferred some quiet spot in Scotland, maybe the Western Isles, somewhere with regular access to her literary agent. Oh, no, the SNP ferry service doesn't do regular, does it?

Well, maybe find a pleasant suburb in Edinburgh, with a pied-a-terre close to all her political friends, while maintaining contact with those in Glasgow through that high-speed rail link she promised years ago. Oh, no, that was an SNP promise, not a commitment, wasn't it?

Perhaps somewhere to the North, maybe Caithness, plenty of open spaces since the Clearances, a place of solitude to sit and ponder the next chapter, then dash down the motorway to see the publisher. Oh, no, we don't have motorways North of Stirling do we?

Oh, well, maybe London does have something going for it after all?

Bruce Proctor, Newtonhill, Aberdeenshire

Scooter crazies

On Friday evening I observed two teenage boys, probably 14 or 15 years old, careering down Edinburgh’s Comiston Road at around 35-40 miles an hour on an electric scooter.

As far as I am aware, riding such a scooter on a public road is itself illegal. The boys in question, apart from driving at a high speed well above 30mph, let alone the 20mph that everyone ignores anyway, weren't wearing helmets, which is foolish. It isn't very sensible, regardless.

Surely, for two of them to be on a scooter at the same time is illegal as well?

Descending the hill at speed the boys then reached the lights at Morningside Station, which were at red, but they went through anyway, barely diminishing their speed.

I regularly see cyclists ignoring red lights, but the compound legal breaches that these boys committed are symptomatic of the impunity with which motorists who are legally compliant are faced daily. Not only that, if and when such idiots collide with a car driver, as often as not, the latter is the one who is penalised. It is high time that all vehicles, including bicycles and scooters, on roads throughout the UK carried a number-plate and that cyclists, as well as the two young lunatics I saw, could be banned from endangering other road-users. Age should not diminish their liability either. Electric scooters should be impounded.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Brilliant Brexit

In our democracy we vote on major issues, then we accept and respect the vote and promote it. It is clear that a large number of Remainers could not or would not accept or promote the result of the Brexit referendum.

The landmark 2024 Draghi Report serves as a stark wake-up call, confirming the European Union’s chronic lack of competitiveness and dynamism. Mario Draghi’s comprehensive diagnosis laid bare the bloc’s severe productivity stagnation and innovation deficit compared to global rivals.

Beyond this report, there is a widely held and well-founded belief that the EU’s unwieldy size, its ever-expanding political mission, and its suffocating obsession with regulation mean it will never again function as a dynamic, economic and diplomatic world powerhouse.

Instead, the bloc is increasingly bogged down by bureaucratic inertia and systemic stagnation. For the UK, these systemic flaws are definitive proof that we made the right choice to leave. Tying our economic future to a structurally sluggish, over-regulated entity would only hold Britain back on the global stage. The evidence makes it abundantly clear: the UK should absolutely not rejoin the EU.

Of course, the six classic arguments for Brexit still hold good, namely: loss of independent trade policy; the cost of membership; regulatory and legal subsidiarity; open borders and immigration; adoption of the Euro and Schengen; and fishing and agriculture restraints.

Doug Clark, Currie, Edinburgh

Bubble vision

I was appalled to read that old prejudices may be returning (“Alan Cumming: ‘I feel the hatred toward LGBT+’,” 28 May), and that Mr Cumming has faced online hatred.

One reason for any return of such hostility surely lies in the move away from defending LGB rights – rooted in same-sex attraction and freedom from discrimination, and which brought progress and public acceptance – to an expansive “LGBTQ+” agenda centred on contested claims about “gender identity”.

This bundling of same-sex attraction and gender identity under “LGBTQ+” and “queer” labels has made support for LGB rights conditional on accepting this wider political package. Many people, including many LGB people, remain unconvinced. They worry about women’s boundaries, the medicalisation of children and the idea that sexual attraction should be based on gender identity rather than sex.

Mr Cumming is a prominent champion of this LGBTQ+ agenda. He admits to inhabiting “a very privileged, liberal queer bubble”. It seems possible that, from within that bubble, some of the arguments he advances may have helped fuel the backlash –including renewed homophobia – that he deplores.

Christine Jardine appears to inhabit the same bubble (“Now it’s anti-trans but I fear a wider attack on our rights”, Perspective, 1 June). Her concern for the welfare of trans-identified people is welcome. I had hoped her fear of a wider attack on rights might include a clear and distinct defence of LGB rights. Instead, as with Alan Cumming, her concern is with “LGBT rights” — conditional on bundling same-sex attraction with gender identity in a way that serves LGB people so poorly.

Brian Forsyth, Edinburgh

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