Readers' Letters: Don't trust SNP/Greens with law enforcement

Humza Yousaf was the worst first minister/prime minister and that is saying something on a list including Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney, Tony Blair and David Cameron. Angela Constance has been the worst justice minister/home secretary and that is saying something on a list including Humza Yousaf, Jacqui Smith and Theresa May.

We have lost over 1,000 police officers since the creation of Police Scotland in 2013, large numbers are on sick leave or restricted duties, with many of the remainder stressed, overworked and subject to regular disruptions to their working and family lives. In the last 20 years police pay has fallen way behind inflation and no longer compensates for the special demands of the job.

Over £2 billion has been taken from the police budget, over 180 police stations have closed and many of those left have been neglected and require millions of pounds of repairs. Many officers are inadequately trained and poorly equipped. The police have been used as a cash cow and asset stripped and are operating with one hand empty and the other tied behind its back.

There has been a drugs explosion, huge numbers of drugs deaths, increased violent and sexual crimes, thousands of crimes simply written off, dangerous streets and prisoners released ridiculously early with little thought for victims.

For your safety and the future of Scotland, vote anything but SNP/Green.

Doug Keil, Glasgow

Regressive left

I despair at the dismal level of anything constructive coming from the regressive parties of the left in Scotland.

Russell Findlay was quite right to confront John Swinney in the not-very-public leaders' debate on Tuesday night. Scottish farmers will probably sell their produce in England if he gets re-elected, just to cover their costs in producing wheat and milk, butter and eggs. Corner shops will simply cease to sell essentials if they are capped below current prices. Mr Swinney seems to have lost the plot. Businesses and jobs will go.

Equally, that any party in Britain could ally themselves with Sinn Fein is bad enough. To add insult to injury, the SNP are offering another freebie of a schoolbag, but no jobs. Heaven forfend!

It was interesting that Reform's Malcolm Offord was frank about his wealth and explained how his know-how could be a real boost for the Scottish economy. Ross Greer of the Greens didn't disappoint in his response. As someone who is barely old enough to be in long trousers, he explained that he did not think someone who has worked hard and created thousands of jobs should be able to own more than one house.

I expect Mr Greer has only one suit and one pair of underpants to match his oratory?

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Figure it out

John Swinney says that votes for the SNP will be taken as votes for independence. Well, he could hardly think they would be for competent government!

But then he must provide a detailed plan for independence so that we can know what we are voting for. No, John? No plan even now? However, it is possible to do fairly robust forecasts, as follows.

Our ballooning expenditure has raced away to £26.1 billion more than our income, in 2024-25, having roughly doubled in Sturgeon's time and since. So this is before big increases to the block grant and Barnett consequentials etc, and after a lot of research, looking at tax forecasts, oil and gas reports, growth forecasts etc, it is clear that the gap between our expenditure and income will be around £28-30bn in 2025-26. Luckily for the SNP the accounts will not be out until after next week's election.

For 2026-27, the rest of the £10.4bn extra provided by the “new” Labour government will boost expenditure while revenues and growth struggle, and oil and gas forecasts halve in 2026-27 – the year we are already in, suggesting a gap of around £30-35bn.

Three years on, if we get a referendum around 2029, say, on similar trend and further oil and gas rundown as per SNP policy, we will reach a situation where the gap between expenditure and income reaches £35-40bn. This is not scaremongering, just best – and indeed, very conservative – estimates of what the facts will be at that time. If I'm wrong, no matter, we will know that then.

This gap will be real and does matter.

Doctors, dentists, police officers, nurses, firefighters, receivers of benefits, civil servants, pensioners etc will go to bed on the eve of Independence Day and will expect to wake up the next morning still getting the same money.

A government finance team will have to be set up very quickly indeed, as by the end of April Indy Scotland will have overspent by £3bn. How will year 1, year 2, years 3-5, 5-10 be funded? How quickly can all these levers kick in and what are they?

Our overspend cf GDP at the very start of independence will be three times worse than, for example, that of Poland – a report this week said their overspend was giving the EU cause for “growing concern”.

Even if you took the entire servicing of debt line out of the regional accounts, around £10bn, the gap is still around £30bn.

We are already at the wrong end of the Laffer Curve, so tax rises will not be productive.

So where's that report, First Minister?

Jonathan Davidson, Stow, Scottish Borders

Short changed

Why is there such a deafening silence from Green, Labour, Liberal, Reform and Tory politicians over the prediction in the polls that the SNP will win around half the seats at Holyrood with the support of only one-third of the vote ?

That means that two-thirds of voters are ignored by a voting system that is not fit for purpose. If the Welsh Assembly could note such a democratic deficiency then why the failure of Holyrood to note the actions of the devolved administration in Cardiff and introduce a system fit for the 21st century? Does obtaining half the seats from one-third of the votes on a 50 per cent turnout give the SNP any mandate in the Edinburgh Parliament or was short-changing rural Scots always an accepted practice for a devolved administration?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Greedy lecturers

Lecturers at the University of Edinburgh are to begin a marking boycott starting on Friday of this week in a dispute over planned redundancies (your report, 28 April). What a selfish lot they are, since this could adversely affect students' results and their future. Why do these highly paid lecturers think they are special and that there should be no compulsory redundancies? Out in the real world tens of thousands of jobs are being lost every day. There’s Grangemouth, the oil and gas industry, manufacturing and many others. In addition over 276,000 jobs have been lost since the implementation of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s budget, which substantially increased taxation on businesses. Business confidence has collapsed, salary growth has stopped, and manufacturers in particular have halted hiring staff and implemented layoffs. These well-paid lecturers should come down from their ivory towers and experience real life, where jobs are scarce and money is tight.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Hop on the bus

I was surprised, almost astonished, that Ewen Peters (Letters, 29 April) asserts that public transport journeys to paying venues and restaurants in Edinburgh are “unavailable, inconvenient or inappropriate” He describes such a journey by car from Bruntsfield.

Mr Peters could have boarded the following: service 11 to Newhaven via George Street, service 15 to Portobello via Waterloo Place, Service 16 to Leith via the East End and several more. I will not rehearse the journeys going south from Bruntsfield, apart from mentioning that the 36 would have taken him to The Gyle shopping centre and the 45 to Juniper Green and Riccarton Campus.

Perhaps, if he could let us know what venues and restaurants he wishes to visit, many Edinburgh bus travellers will be able to assist him.

As a footnote, Edinburgh’s bus fleet is modern, well maintained and offers a smooth ride. The buses run to a timetable (where roadworks permit) and, if you do not have a bus pass, are competitively priced.

J Lindsay Walls, Edinburgh

Down, Donald

The United States is, naturally, entirely entitled to think that sovereignty over a community of islands, many thousands of miles and an ocean away from the imperial power which annexed them in the 19th century is, at best, questionable. Moreover when a long-established indigenous population was effectively enslaved by that imperial power.

I refer, of course, to Hawaii. Donald Trump's latest whirligig idea that the Falklands are a bargaining tool to force the UK to his imperial will is therefore utterly vacuous.

Iain Masterton, Kirknewton, West Lothian

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