Readers' Letters: UK is rich enough to end child poverty now

So trying to create a debate about whether this new government can afford to eliminate child poverty is a poor apology for doing too little. Raising inheritance tax to the same level as income tax would do this many times over.

Is it, as many already suspect, that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and colleagues do not have the political will to actually do the little necessary to start making a difference.

Meanwhile, there is also plenty Holyrood could do already, such as universal free school meals.

Norman Lockhart, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Memory loss?

Stan Grodynski (Letters, 17 July) criticises Jane Lax ( for referring to the SNP’s crackdown on dissent within its ranks. He accuses her of thinking that she is an expert on the internal workings of the SNP.

Mr Grodynski clearly suffers from amnesia. He forgets that in 2015 the SNP introduced a rule stating that none of its MPs should “publicly criticise a group decision, policy or another member of the group”. Indeed, this rule change was described at Holyrood by then Labour leader Kezia Dugdale as “Stalinist”t (The Scotsman, 30 March 2015).

Mr Grodynski further criticises Ms Lax for claiming that the SNP focuses only on Independence. What Ms Lax rightly says is that, if the SNP had done its job of governing properly, Scots would be a lot better off. Trying to deflect onto the dismal record of the devolved Welsh regime is irrelevant and does Mr Grodynski no credit.

And perhaps he can tell us why, if Ms Lax is wrong, secession from the UK was “page one, line one” of the SNP’s recent manifesto.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Fig leaves ahoy

Even if by 2026 Scotland’s budget deficit had doubled and the famous ferries still hadn’t sailed, chances are that Stan Grodynski would still be carefully gluing fig leaves to every SNP failure.

He proudly announces that “There are many people in Scotland who would have been considerably worse off if it were not for the actions of the Scottish Government, which has done more over the last decade to protect the poor and the vulnerable in the country than any other government in the UK.”

This presumably refers to a profusion of random freebies and increased social welfare. Scottish separatists deny the fact that sustained improvement for the disadvantaged comes through long-term, stable economic growth, not from gimmicks like baby-boxes, bigger cash handouts or constitutional uncertainty. Why not employment, empowerment and opportunity instead?

This brings us to Mr Grodynski’s next two boasts, that: “On nearly every measure, including the provision of public services such as health and education, the Labour government in Wales (without an independence agenda) has been consistently outperformed by the Scottish Government.”

A very low bar indeed to set. However, you simply can’t crow about healthcare when there’s a 15 per cent consultant vacancy rate, while General Practice north of the Border has “reached tipping point”, according to the British Medical Association. These medical professionals are higher earners, penalised by the Scottish Government’s far-left taxation policies. Not surprising that many are discouraged from practising here. The second claim also lacks substance; from the perspective of someone who actually works in education, the explosion of classroom violence, pupil absenteeism, staff shortages and deteriorating attainment levels neatly sum up the nationalists’ record in this area.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Think harmony

It's hard to think of anything new to say about the Middle East dilemma, centring on the future of Israel and Palestine (“Hamas complicit in October 7 war crimes”, July 18). Surely there are tragic war crimes, committed by both sides, with any resolution seeming as far distant as ever.

Would a step forward be possible in taking as a blueprint the former Czechoslovakia splitting amicably into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in peaceful harmony? It is well past the time to keep suggesting a two-state solution without doing anything practical to achieve it, stuck as we are in a well-worn rut.

Without a doubt, the vast majority on both sides yearn, like the rest of us, for a peaceful life, which, with a will and vision from both sides, can become less of a miracle than a real possibility.

There is enough land for a fair and just outcome for two neighbouring states to live in harmony, and with the perpetual violence descending into war crimes going nowhere, it's time to plot a peaceful route.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Out of touch

The Perspective article of July 18 discussing the future of Grangemouth is yet another case of the media putting the cart before the horse over Green Transition costs.

Replacing gas (6p/unit), which supplies 80 per cent of energy needs, with wind generator output (14p/unit) will more than double Scottish energy bills at a level far above those that triggered the current cost of living crisis.

Quite simply, renewable electricity is a product that 75 per cent of Scots cannot afford yet Cabinet Ministers, on their six-figure salaries, have lost touch with the living standards problems faced by the voters. After all, how many can afford the £44,000 bill to fit a heat pump to a flat ?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

Tough times

In David Alexander’s latest column on the private rental sector (“Rent controls fly in the face of housing sector facts”, July 18) he doesn’t state where the statistics he quotes come from. Despite this ambiguity there are published statistics from the Joseph Rowntree survey carried out by the University of Huddersfield in 2022 that present a less than rosy picture of the Scottish private rental sector.

For example 30 per cent of respondents state they have difficulty affording rent; 23 per cent cut spending on household essentials to afford their rent. The full survey can be found online by searching: Living in Scotland’s private rented sector.

Paul Gillon, Edinburgh

Hard cell

When the new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced she had a plan for relieving prison overcrowding I was mildly impressed. Despite only being in office a week she had obviously thought about the issue. Now that I hear the plan (the government will simple release prisoners early) I’ve changed my mind. I thought locking criminals up had an element of “throwing away the key” about it? Perhaps it’s the influence of Baron Timpson, new Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation, who is more used to providing people with keys than throwing them away?

I hope the new government have thought other issues through a bit more carefully.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Baby steps

Considering that the UK birth rate has dropped to only 1.58 children per woman, it seems unwise to restrict child tax credits to only two children (Clark Cross, Letters, July 17). He asked why responsible taxpayers should have to pay for other people's children. The answer is that, if they don't, we will run out of British people and this country will be populated only by incomers, probably from underdeveloped countries.

The average replacement rate is 2.08 but to rebuild the indigenous population it needs to be well over that: say 3. To achieve that some families should have well over 3, say 5, and they should be encouraged to do so by government inducements.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

A new man?

There are some images which change history. Think of the photograph of the Vietnamese child screaming and running with American napalm stuck to her flesh. It changed US opinion in favour of peace.

The images and videos of Donald Trump's attempted assassination are others which will reverberate through time. They show Trump's character. While you and I may have been thinking of our own safety, his reaction was not flight, but fight – against barbarism. It shows the character of the man. And it also shows he was very aware of what was happening. I doubt his presidential opponent would have had any idea at all.

Furthermore, I suspect that it will also emphasise to Donald Trump the narrow margin between life and death. If this is the case it will spur him, if elected leader of the free world, to do his utmost to bring the murderous conflicts in Gaza and in Ukraine to a close.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Grangemouth Refinery

It now seems inevitable that the Grangemouth refinery will close with 400 workers being paid off in what is Scotland’s only refinery.

The responsibility for this closure lies clearly with the SNP who ignored warnings from owner Aberdeen councillor Jim Gifford that without fracking technology Grangemouth would have to close.

This is the latest mass redundancy facing Scottish workers as the SNP continue to undermine Scottish industry in favour of vast numbers of “economically inactive” people who exist entirely on benefits.

This is another illustration of why the Scottish people have lost all trust in the SNP to govern Scotland.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen

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