Readers' Letters: Swinney's latest cabinet lacks talent Scotland needs

One must wonder what sway Angela Constance holds over the First Minister. Since 2014 she has been Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth & Women’s Unemployment. She has been Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. She has been Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities. She has been Minister for Drugs Policy – that went well. She has been Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs and now she has been appointed Cabinet Secretary for Health & Care.

Looking at this CV, it seems there will be few people in Scotland who will not have been affected by her incompetence in some way or another.

In other Cabinet appointments made by John Swinney, one must ask where are those with real-world business experience of creating wealth and jobs?

Apart from Ivan McKee, we have someone with experience in Policy & Public Affairs, a teacher, a research intern, a councillor and someone with experience in Human Rights and Women’s Aid.

With this “Cabinet of Talents” one wonders where on earth Scotland will be in five years’ time?

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Talent show

The Conservatives slammed a lack of talent in the new Scottish cabinet. That really is very unfair given the incredibly limited “talent” pool John Swinney had to choose from!

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

Saving story

The SNP are living in a fairy tale world if John Swinney wants to see public sector job savings of only £1 billion. Add on the manifesto pledges of the SNP and the black hole widens to around £7bn.

Again, if the average wage is £35,000 a year then a cut-off 11,000 jobs only saves less than £0.5bn – ie the SNP require to save another £6.5bn.

If the brunt of savings is factored on job cuts then John Swinney is faced with the task of cutting a grand total of 200,000 jobs or raising tax by £7,000 a year on the one million high earners such as NHS consultants, senior nurses, principal teaching staff and managers in Scottish Water.

That widens the take-home gap for these workers compared to their English counterparts.

Just how will the SNP find time for such a project while capping supermarket prices, freezing bus fares, closing the education gap and funding public sector wage increases?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Ready to swear?

At Holyrood a number of MSPs have prefaced their taking of the oath of allegiance with comments about “the sovereign Scottish people”, or similar, which is a nationalist conceit with no factual basis. The UK is our sovereign country, and sovereignty resides in Parliament, or, rather, with the King in Parliament. Mark Ruskell (Scottish Greens) put it slightly differently: “In my heart, my allegiance is to the people of Scotland”. Some mentioned that their allegiance was to the people and not to royalty.

Nevertheless, all of the MSPs said, in addition, that they “do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors”.

This is a contradiction when said by those who have claimed sovereignty rests with the people of Scotland, some with clenched fist and others not. Presumably those MSPs stating allegiance to both “the people of Scotland” and King Charles have been told they cannot take their seats if they do not swear or affirm allegiance to the King. At Westminster, Sinn Fein have long refused to take the royal oath and therefore do not take their seats, and do not receive a salary.

Still, there is something incongruous, putting it kindly, in MSPs of a nationalist disposition “solemnly swearing” to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles”.

Just another pantomime to add to the gaiety of the nation and its dysfunctional representative assembly.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Off the rails

The news that HS2 is to proceed despite huge cost over-runs is an absolute disgrace.

This vanity project needs to be scrapped. It is a basic principle of economics not to throw good money after bad. At a time when we need to increase spending on defence and the NHS, this is an outrage. Nothing more displays our government’s London bias, to the detriment of the rest of the UK.

Colin McAllister, St Andrews, Fife

Flip the narrative

When I was young, many years ago in the 1970s, my mum and dad called me their “wee scot nat”. And half a century later, that desire to see Scotland chart its own course hasn't wavered, but the way we talk about it certainly needs a change.

​For years we've been used to viewing our nation through a Westminster lens, consistently treated as a northern region. But what happens if we completely flip that traditional geographical hierarchy, stop looking south for permission, and playfully view England as merely “the south of Scotland”?

​This is about recognising Scotland as the natural centre of its own political universe. We are a mature, capable nation that has simply outgrown a union managed from hundreds of miles away, and it is time we started acting like it.

As Freddie Mercury so memorably sang: We want to break free!

Judith Campbell, Portree, Isle of Skye

Take a lesson

South of the Border, TV news bulletins have just shown Arsenal supporters basking in the aftermath of their team’s success in winning the English Premiership title. Celebrations were loud, long lasting, boisterous and enthusiastic – but good natured.

Contrast that with those in my homeland. A pitch invasion, rioting, injured police and the opposition bundled into a coach and driven off for their safety… I wonder what would would have happened had Celtic not “triumphed?”

Maybe there are lessons to be learned north of the Border from the treatment of Southampton, who have lost the chance to play in the potentially lucrative multi-million pound Premiership Play Off final as a result of taking a few snaps of the opposition in training, never mind wholesale disorder.

John Rhind, Beadnell, Northumberland

Dock points

I truly believe that the only way of stopping pitch invasions by football fans is to dock points from their team. Celtic and Rangers should both be docked points for their recent behaviour at the recent old firm game and Celtic at the Hearts match.

If it is too controversial to do this for this season, they should lose points for the beginning of next season at least five points.

Ian Henderson, Tweedbank, Scottish Borders

Be ashamed

Well done Hearts at the game on Saturday, your team and supporters were a credit.

The opposition, due to their supporters, should have the cup removed from them, along with the position of winning the league. It is undeserved due to their atrocious supporters.

If the team was punished maybe teams would behave more appropriately. Football is a sport young people should be able to attend without concern for their safely.

It is a disgrace and the name does not deserve to be on the cup. They should be rightly ashamed.

Margaret Menzies, Alloa, Clackmannanshire

Nothing new

Although I was a wee boy, I well remember being on a bus with my Mum on a wet Saturday afternoon in Glasgow, when it was literally stormed by alcoholically-challenged Celtic supporters.

I remember, also, passengers being sworn at and threatened.

Given recent behaviour, it looks like things haven’t changed much.

Doug Morrison, Tenterden, Kent

Good conduct

Regarding the wonderful selection of photographs from 70 years ago in the Scotsman (20 May), if I may comment particularly on the one of the conductress (glad to see the proper description) on the bus, I wonder how often she used that well-known Scottish phrase – “come on, get off” – to unruly passengers.

Charles Lowson, Fareham, Hants

NHS idea

Andrew Thorpe provides an excellent idea to ameliorate the problems caused by NHS bed blocking (Letters, 21 May).

During a hospital visit of my own I discovered that occupational therapists – not doctors or surgeons – decide who can go home once treatment is finished, and the impediment to that was their view of the amount of homecare needed by a discharged patient, and that was in short supply.

So rather than pumping money into the hospital side of the NHS, why not finance the private homecare providers, enabling their numbers to expand, and take more discharged hospital patients.

Also, the status of homecare employees is – incredibly – considered to be unskilled, which my own experience tells me is not the case.

So that should be upgraded to skilled, and paid accordingly using extra money paid to their employers.

Another NHS problem solved.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire