Readers’ letters: Scottish Government's reaction to Gers figures stretches credulity

Shona Robison states: “Gers reflects the fact that the current UK Government has continued with the economic mismanagement of its predecessors.” She also blames the reduction in revenues from the North Sea.

After 18 years of utter fiscal incompetence from the SNP, perhaps some of the dosh which has disappeared down the plug-hole needs stating. Stop all exploration in the North sea, destroying revenues, massive redundancies and huge losses in tax revenue. Free prescriptions, free university for the limited number of Scottish students allowed to enroll, free baby boxes, £400 million overspend on two ferries, free bus passes for under-22-year-olds, free school meals – the list is never ending.

It would appear that the magic money tree (£2,699 of additional public spending compared to the UK average) is losing its leaves. The time has come to get rid of this SNP government.

We have another nine months of financial incompetence to endure before the 2026 elections – what state will the nation’s finances be in by then? I dread to think.

When our pre-eminent national newspaper states with regard to Ms Robisons comments, “In other words, the magic wand of independence will make our problems disappear”, it is nothing short of a huge indictment of this government’s ineptitude and utterly deluded means of governing.

No wonder Nicola Sturgeon is thinking of jumping Hadrian’s Wall – she won’t be the only one should these indie zealots get their way.

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Business as usual

The publication of the latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue for Scotland) figures has triggered a now traditional feeding frenzy. A black hole in Scotland’s finances is heralded by unionist politicians as validating the continuation of the Union.

The killer phrase for me from the GERS report is: “The report is designed to allow users to understand and analyse Scotland’s fiscal position under different scenarios within the current constitutional framework.”

GERS is therefore a measure of the public finances under the current Union, hardly the greatest endorsement for how the economy has been managed on the UK’s watch. Indeed, major economic levers required to stimulate economic growth are still currently reserved to Westminster.

Contrast this with our near neighbour, the Republic of Ireland, which has run budget surpluses totalling over £34 billion since 2022, with another forecast this year. Despite having considerably less in the way of natural resources than Scotland, the government there has announced a “transformational” plan to spend over £183bn over the next decade on infrastructure.

The point of independence is not to do everything in the same way as it has been done within the current constitutional framework, but to move away from this one-size-fits-all fiscal straitjacket to a tailored approach that prioritises stimulating economic growth.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Service sector

The closing of churches (Letters, 14 August) is the business equivalent of sacking the sales force because business is bad. In both cases the answer is an updating of the product to make it more attractive to the customer.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth & Kinross

Covid claims

I have to disagree with Martin O’Gorman’s suggestion (Letters, 13 August) that Nicola Sturgeon “weaponised Covid”. He gives no justification and for many she did the opposite.

Evidence suggests that she went out of her way to keep Scotland informed in her clear communicative style with press conferences daily to hold her and her government to account. This is a far cry from Boris Johnson, who flagrantly breached his own rules on several occasions and blustered through occasional press conferences with lies and, it transpired, put the economy before human life on occasion.

In her candid interview with Julie Etchingham she covered at least as many misjudgments as successes. While there were the eight election victories, Sturgeon chose to talk about the dark and difficult realities in her troubled political life. The usual political answers were replaced by a frank admission that she had got things wrong in four key areas. Misjudging the mood of the nation in 2017 when “caught off guard” by the scrutiny of a second referendum, feeling partly responsible for Covid deaths, losing her friendship with Alex Salmond and gender reform.

Her reluctance to mark her performance out of ten may be because it is not for her to judge. Often we are quick to praise ourselves before others.

I agree with Mr O’Gorman about a lack of political progress, Sturgeon cited only the child payment along with election successes as achievements. Ultimately she failed to deliver independence and that is how many will judge her.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Stalinist tendencies

Joanna Cherry accuses Nicola Sturgeon of having a Stalinist leadership style (Scotsman, 14 August).There seems little doubt that the SNP was run in an authoritarian style under Nicola, but to be fair, she inherited this from the previous leader Alex Salmond, in his drive for independence.

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Orwell’s critique

In his defence of Nicola Sturgeon, Robert Menzies uses the term Orwellian (Letters, 14 August). I suggest that he reads Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism”, written in 1945.

Orwell’s wide-ranging critique starts by saying that nationalism assumes that human beings can be classified like insects, that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled “good” or “bad”, and that the nationalist habit of identifying oneself with a single nation and placing it beyond good or evil recognises no other duty than advancing its interests. He goes on to say that the abiding interest of every nationalist is to secure more power, not for himself, but for the nation in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

Of course Orwell’s binary phraseology was written long before the gender wars had broken out, but I am sure that he would have fulminated against censorship and no-platforming with great vigour as matters of principle.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Never too late

Murdo Fraser’s throwaway sentence towards the end of his article about the 2025 Highers examinations (Scotsman, 13 August) stated that “Young people get only one chance at education”.

As one who spent 32 years in various further education colleges this does seem rather disrespectful to the sector. My favourite class over the years was a group of, mainly, 35-45-year-old housewives responding to an urgent invitation to train as teachers. I do not think that the school system had failed them; rather they were probably too immature at that time to gain full benefit. Often I was told by them that they had never understood Hamlet until they were given this second chance. Not my teaching, but their greater maturity and experience of life was what made the difference. Their lack of ego about their own ability was touching but led to my being asked frequently: “Do you think I’ll scrape a C pass?” There was never any doubt.

And that’s what those of us working in the sector always saw as its main priority – giving people a second chance. I even saw this in my own family when one my daughters, who had been pursuing City and Guilds qualifications in catering, took a government-sponsored basic computing course in my own college and progressed from there to a degree in computing at university and a very successful career.

Bill Greenock, Netherlee, East Renfrewshire

Forgotten Fleet

National events are being held to mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day today.

For VJ Day 80, the government’s website mentions the Fourteenth Army – the Forgotten Army – but not the British Pacific Fleet (BPF), the Forgotten Fleet. By VJ Day in 1945, the BPF consisted of 190,000 men and women, some 273 ships, more than 750 naval aircraft and bases ashore. The largest ever British fleet, it was supported by peoples of the Commonwealth in Australia, New Zealand, India and Ceylon. Sailors from many more nations served in Merchant Navy ships in the ‘Fleet Train’, and some foreign nationals were at sea with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, all supporting America’s huge Pacific naval forces.

After Japan’s surrender, the BPF was the only force immediately available to safeguard British and Commonwealth interests in the Pacific, carrying out humanitarian work, particularly with prisoners of war. My father’s destroyer, HMS Wager, returned home after 18 months away in January 1946.

In All Hell Let Loose, Sir Max Hastings suggests that “the Royal Navy and the United States Navy were their countries’ outstanding fighting services” of the war. Indeed, the Royal Navy was the only service in the world engaged from the first to the last day of the Second World War.

Not just the Forgotten Fleet, today’s sea-blind Britain has forgotten the importance of the sea and ships to our nation’s livelihood.

Lester May (Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy – retired), London

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