Readers' Letters: Labour aren't acting as if they care about families facing poverty

According to Save The Children the cap is “cruel” and The Children's Charities Coalition call it “devastating”. In a newspaper interview last year former Labour MP and Shadow Work And Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth declared: “We are very, very aware that the cap is one of the single most heinous elements of the system which is pushing children and families into poverty today.”

It is estimated that it would cost between £2.5-£3.6 billion to remove the cap and this could be financed by imposing a wealth tax on the ultra-well off. There are, after all, more billionaires and millionaires in the UK than ever before. You would think for a party formed to improve the lot of the working classes that alleviating child poverty would be an absolute number one priority, but Sir Keir refuses to budge and the cap remains.

He chooses to let children and their families suffer rather than take a little extra in tax from the wealthiest segment of the population. In light of this it is surely reasonable to ask whether the Labour Party now stands for the few rather than the many!

Alan Woodcock, Dundee

Pensions plan?

Scotland should welcome the recent independent Wellbeing Pension Plan. In support the SNP has pledged that with independence they would provide pensions in line with Europe, which could end pensioner poverty.

From UK government figures, 80 per cent of pensioners are still on the basic pension of £159.50 per week, which is one of the worst in the developed world. The Wellbeing think tank has calculated that at £241.50, this would be just enough for a person to live with some kind of dignity.

In welcoming this the respected economist Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, founder of Business for Scotland, has stated that polling indicates that if pensions were to rise in line with the EU “the independence vote would rise to well over 60 per cent”.

However, he claimed: “Both Tory and Labour have kept pensions low to boost the City of London, where middle class people buy private pensions.”

Grant Frazer, Newtonmore, Highland

Hardly austere

Joyce McMillan, not for the first time, goes on about “the iron grip of Tory austerity” (Perspective, July 19). Would this be the same Tories who spent more than £400 billion on Covid and fuel subsidies, thus adding hugely to the national debt? Some austerity!

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Boom times

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), during 2022-23 tax revenue generated in Scotland, including North Sea oil, amounted to £87.5 billion, equivalent 8.6 per cent of the UK total. This is more than our population share (8.2 per cent).

A recent article in Economics, a London publication, finds that the Scottish public sector generated an annual revenue of £73.3bn during the previous financial year, a 24 per cent increase versus a decade ago, equating to an increased contribution of £14.2bn to the UK Treasury. Scotland now accounts for some 8 per cent of total UK contributions, much higher than that contributed by our less populous neighbours, with 3.5 per cent contributed by Wales and the 2.1 per cent by Northern Ireland.

According to official GERS figures, Scotland’s GDP is £212bn. These current figures illustrate that Scotland is booming.

The UK is set to be £311bn worse off by 2035 due to leaving the EU, according to The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank. Scotland’s per population share will be £25bn, although Brexit will affect Scotland disproportionately due to geography.

Why do we need two governments?

D W Lowden, Aberdeen

Wrong focus

How ironic that in one of Christine Jardine’s first articles in The Scotsman after the General Election she can find nothing new to say about her party's increased role at Westminster but resorts to telling the Tories who they should elect as leader!

I looked in vain for some hope for the future from her for her constituents in Edinburgh West but, alas, not a mention!

Scott Miller, Joppa, Edinburgh

Have confidence

It is rather ironic that Alexander McKay bemoans always voting for “negative reasons” yet spurns self-determination for Scotland, which offers the only potential route to a considerably more optimistic future (Letters, 20 July).

To my knowledge, none of the 62 countries that have become independent of the United Kingdom have sought to return to the colonial rule of England, and as long as the people of Scotland are effectively subservient to their “masters” down south many are unlikely to fulfil their individual potentials, unless, like countless before them, they leave Scotland.

Working, and particularly living, abroad gave me a different perspective on the merits of British rule to the UK indoctrination of my schooling in Scotland.

Unfortunately it seems serving in the Navy did not provide Mr McKay with the same opportunity to take a broadly objective look at Britain’s past and the likely future for the people of Scotland, whose aspirations will never be fully realised as long as they are bound by the values and ambitions of another nation channelled through the self-serving class system of the British Establishment.

Of course not everyone has the confidence of a successful entrepreneur to positively balance future prospects and associated risks, but most people who have spent time in countries of the former Soviet Union can’t help but be greatly impressed at the enormous progress made by those countries of similar populations to Scotland (even without access to Scotland’s immense natural resources).

My simple plea to Mr MacKay is not to let enduring personal negativity and apparent lack of confidence in his fellow Scots stand in the way of endorsing a more optimistic future for those who follow.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Choose carefully

Watching President Joe Biden over the past couple of months had become painful. He was an old man and clearly struggling to cope on many levels in a job with no hiding place. It would have been criminally unfair to place him in charge of the Free World for the next four years, making decisions on life or death for many millions when his abilities were so diminished and his condition seemed to be worsening. His announcement will be welcomed.

The problem now is: who comes next? I would rather it was not Donald Trump, and I thought his views on abortion and his past relations with and remarks about women would keep him out of the White House. Of course, these may be balanced with his forthright but clearly popular views on gender and transwomen competing in sport.

It all hinges, surely, on who the Democrats can put forward. Our lives in their hands.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Starmer’s failure

I know it must be difficult to be honest in public when asked about another's health but our Prime Minister should have been a bit more circumspect instead of endorsing the US President's health after their recent meeting. Keir Starmer must have known, as do the rest of the people on this planet, that Joe Biden is not fit to fulfil the demands of his office.

Once again Sir Keir Starmer is caught out muttering platitudes, as he did when bending his knee, and being unsure if a woman has a penis. This is the guy who is now in charge of Great Britain… at least there's a clinical reason for Biden's ineptitude, we've got five long years to endure this windsock expedient.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Money talks

The recent payment problems experienced at many retailers and elsewhere due to a basic, short-lived computing malfunction (“What is CrowdStrike and has it caused the global Microsoft IT outage?”, Scotsman, 19 July) show yet again the benefits of having a stable payment method that does not rely at all times on fully functioning technical systems, internet connectivity and power supply.

We have such a method: cash. The latest debacle demonstrates yet again why, although digital payment methods can have an important role, cash remains a critical part of societal infrastructure.

Christopher Ruane, Lanark

Hurling praise

On Sunday I watched the final of the All Ireland Hurling Championship. Wow! I think I was as breathless watching it as some of players were. After the pettiness, the diving and the feigned injuries of the football Euros, this was sport at its most exciting best.

Prima donna premier league football has become a joke as players basically cheat to get results. They should watch this and feel shame at how they have degraded a sport that used to have a similar level of excitement. Football authorities should act to restore the game.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

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