Readers' Letters: Let football fans hear discussions behind VAR judgments

The Scottish Football Association Key Match Incident Panel decided, by a 2:1 majority, that Celtic should not have been awarded a penalty against Motherwell on 13 May. The same Panel, by a 2:1 majority, decided that Hearts should have been awarded a penalty against Motherwell on 9 May. Occurring so late in the season, these two incidents effectively determined the outcome of the Scottish Premier League title.

Next season, could the SFA please follow the example of Rugby Union/League and allow fans to hear the discussions which take place between the on-field referee and those sitting in Clydesdale House whenever VAR intervenes. In that way everyone would at least understand how decisions are made and hopefully be satisfied the decisions are fair and objective.

This might also avoid referees being the subject of abuse and threatening phone calls. VAR is only as good as the people sitting in judgment.

R H Beattie, Edinburgh

Writing off rote?

Lovina Roe (Letters, 25 May) correlates the long-term decline in English standards with the demise of textbook teaching and learning by rote (in the case of maths and arithmetic, the decline is even more pronounced). How does this fundamental challenge stack up in the age of AI?

Sam Altman, founder of ChatGPT, is of the opinion that forcing students to spend years memorising and accumulating facts by rote is now increasingly obsolete and outdated. His reasoning is fourfold: Firstly, AI will always possess a superior, flawless memory and data-recall capability: traditional knowledge accumulation will inevitably lose in any battle with superintelligence.

Then, calculators shifted maths teaching away from testing students on tedious manual arithmetic toward higher-level mathematical logic. AI will do the same for all text and data, thereby freeing the human mind from the tedium of mental “manual labour”.

Thirdly, the exponential evolution of technology means any fixed set of facts memorised today will likely be irrelevant or outdated in a few years. The key skills in learning will be the agility to rapidly absorb new paradigms, unlearn obsolete frameworks, and adapt in the moment.

Finally, the concept of intelligence will shift from conventional IQ to the ability to decide what to solve, how to direct AI, and how to critically audit AI outputs and responses.

Altman’s tech-optimism assumes the outsourcing, storage and manipulation of facts to external tools is entirely net-positive. There is, however, a tension here with the findings of neuroscience, where the formation of deep neural networks in our brains is seen as fundamental to the safe, productive and expert management of AI.

Furthermore, this formation process is best achieved, apparently, via the memorisation of facts (the denser and more difficult the better). Without these foundations, the secondary scaffolding required for the intelligent questioning and critical assessment of AI will not be soundly constructed. On this basis, it turns out, paradoxically, that the three “Rs” and learning by rote have never been more important for our children’s in their AI-future!

Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire

It’s not misogyny

As one of the gullible electorate Nicola Sturgeon seems to be trying to convince that she and the SNP were victims of Peter Murrell’s crimes, I find it hard to accept she puts this down to the fact that a lot of women end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives.

Surely this is nothing to do with this “women” angle but entirely to do with the fact that she was his boss and completely in charge of the SNP? The husband/wife relationship surely has nothing to do with this, other than to make it even harder for us “gullibles” to believe that she was unaware of what was going on?

For example, we are told that the infamous motorhome was a campaign bus. Was that expense not noted and queried by those in charge, even if it was parked round the corner?

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

See no parcels

I would not want to underestimate Nicola Sturgeon's grip on the SNP during her time as first minister. She was well-known for her micro-management during that time and has even described herself as a “control freak”. However, when it came to questioning by a Holyrood committee, all of a sudden, she couldn't seem to recall anything 50 times!

Now, she seems to have suffered a further, constant lapse of her powers of observation when 383 fraudulent Amazon purchases made by her then husband were delivered to their house. Not only that. A further 238 purchases from other retailers were (at least in part) also delivered to their house. Did they have a rotating door for all the delivery men coming by?

There is only one solution that comes to my mind to explain it. When she came home, exhausted from another day of free TV exposure during the Covid outbreak, Peter Murrell switched her off and plugged her in to recharge her batteries.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Facts please

Given the former first minister's lack of recall on many topics, can the current First Minister show the command of his brief and advise us of the up-to-date position of the dualling of the A9, the progress of the initiatives on the drug deaths in Scotland, the ferries and whatever happened to the staff to pupil ratio of 1:20?

Ian Culbertson, Edinburgh

Rueing the roads

William Loneskie (Letters, 3 June) is correct to highlight the Sheriffhall flyover as long overdue. Indeed, traffic data shows that it is not just the most congested junction in Scotland, it is in the top ten for the whole of the UK. This affects business, tourists and local people conducting their lives and is costing the economy millions of pounds.

Of wider concern is the Edinburgh City Bypass as a whole, proposed in the 1930s and completed in the 1980s when the population of the city was around 400,000; it is now over 550,000. The road was designed for 50,000 vehicles per day but now regularly carries more than 80,000. At peak times, such as Friday afternoons, traffic diverts to the old ring road which is also becoming highly congested.

The other major bottleneck, the Calder junction to the Baberton on-slip, also needs to be addressed urgently given the number of accidents as a result of the short on-ramp on top of a hill. A crawler lane should have been designed in with a longer slip but until that is rectified the junction should be closed for safety reasons. A third lane is badly needed for the whole bypass but the chances of that logic registering with the anti-car SNP/Green alliance seems low indeed, hence the prospect of the road grinding to a complete halt.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Moral pressure

Tim Hopkins (Letters, June 3) rejects the suggestion that the bundling of same-sex attraction and “gender identity” under “LGBTQ+” and “queer” labels, making support for LGB rights conditional on accepting this wider political package, may have helped revive old hostilities.

He notes that, by 2015, the UK was at the top of the European table for legal “LGBT equality”, before successive UK Governments “blocked progress on trans equality”. But this “progress” has been recognised by many – including many LGB people and civil society organisations – to be a campaign to make gender identity prevail over sex. The actions of UK governments should be understood in that context.

“LGBTQ+” organisations seeking such “progress” have sought to recast homosexuality as attraction to the same “sex or gender”, and to treat objections to gender self-ID as bigotry. That matters profoundly to gay men and lesbians. LGB equality was built on the right to be same-sex attracted without shame, euphemism or coercion.

When lesbians are told that sex-based boundaries are hateful, or gay people are expected to endorse slogans that dissolve the meaning of homosexuality, the wider public is invited to associate “gay rights” with contested gender claims many LGB people simply do not accept. It is not fanciful to think that such an association may have contributed to renewed homophobia.

Mr Hopkins’s appeal to solidarity between LGB and transgender people is an attempt to settle a political dispute by moral pressure. Calling a contested gender-identity programme “trans equality” makes disagreement appear anti-equality. Saying LGB people must not “throw our trans siblings under the bus” makes LGB dissent appear betrayal. But gay men and lesbians are under no obligation to redefine homosexuality, deny sex, or subordinate their interests to prove their decency. That is political conscription, not solidarity.

Brian Forsyth, Edinburgh

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