Readers' Letters: Voters riding gravy train will back SNP

However, a little scratch under the surface of the Scottish tax base and welfare benefits may provide the answers. The Scottish tax base indicates some 2.8 million people (about 60 per cent of the adult population) pay income tax and so the remaining 1.8 million or so (about 40 per cent) pay no income tax as their income falls below the personal allowance of £12,570. Further, only 9.9 per cent of adults pay the higher rate of 41p while fewer than 1 per cent pay the top rate of 46p.

The public sector employs a vast 600,000 people with pay around 5 per cent higher than the rest of the UK. More than 200,000 people receive Universal Credit and around 53 per cent of households in Scotland received some form of state benefit in 2023/24. There has been an increase of 50 per cent in claimant numbers for Disability Benefits in under three years, with now more than 475,000 claimants.

In summation, there is a large part of the Scottish public that will continue to ride the “gravy train” of benefits that is provided by the SNP and regretfully the SNP will continue to fuel that train, hence a potential majority. What an expensive and, ultimately, a financial disaster for the country as a whole the result will be.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Why the delay?

Thank you Susan Dalgety for reminding people that it is more than 219 days since the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) sent women's minister Bridget Phillipson its draft guidance on single-sex spaces (Perspective, 11 April). Why is she refusing to table this draft guidance to the UK Parliament?

Neither she nor John Swinney has responded to the request for a face to face meeting with For Women Scotland.

Her delay has meant the Scottish government has gleefully continued its policy of allowing male offenders who identify as women to be put into female prisons, thus putting at risk already vulnerable women.

At least with 50 per cent of the Scottish voters being women we can get rid of the SNP and their gender policies on 7 May. It’s a pity the UK general election is not until 15 August 2029.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Debate open

Labour’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting recently wrote that it is “not up for debate that every trans person deserves to feel safe and be respected”. While happy to agree in genuine cases, it is indeed up for debate until politicians stop uttering such blanket assertions without giving a clear, credible and limited definition of “trans”.

I cannot respect any male with male genitalia in full working order who has abused or raped one or more females, and who then announces, but only after being accused or charged or sentenced, that he (or whatever preferred pronoun is adopted) “self-identifies” as a woman. It is disgraceful that MSPs from all parties approved Nicola Sturgeon’s and John Swinney’s misguided advocacy of such a nonsense in our so-called justice system, leading to several such criminals being held in women’s prisons.

Nor does it bode well for Scotland’s post-election governance that the most zealous of such advocates – the SNP and Greens – still have significant support throughout the country, or that Labour in Westminster delays tabling mere “guidance” on single-sex spaces.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Safe bet?

While Anas Sarwar seems to continue to believe that he is the anointed saviour of the Labour Party in Scotland, and that he can duplicitously spin the same message of “change” that failed the Scottish public at the last general election, clearly his boss, Sir Keir Starmer, thinks otherwise. The decision to declassify information relating to the activities, over past months, of Russian submarines in the North Atlantic had nothing to do with “sending a message to Putin” and all to do with a politically desperate attempt to dupe the Scottish public into believing, ahead of the Holyrood election in May, that Westminster is concerned with defending Scotland’s territorial waters.

Of course, it was no surprise to listen to the misleading headlines and reports from the biased BBC which stated that the Russian activities were “in” the north of Scotland, rather than “to” the north of Scotland, as subsequently confirmed.

What was not mentioned in these reports was the fact that Scotland’s territorial waters are supposedly protected by naval ships based in the south of England, which when not docked for repairs can take weeks, if not months, to be equipped for action around Europe, as demonstrated by the recent tardy mobilisation of HMS Dragon.

Scots, though, should rest assured because although obsolete nuclear submarines are based near our most populous city, they are circling the globe with their weapons of colossal-destruction.

Furthermore, with two aircraft carriers also able to patrol the world’s seas we can sleep easily at night in the knowledge that these massive ships, directly or indirectly, are supporting the ambitions for international peace and democracy of the autocratic controller of the planet’s most powerful arsenal, the madman who believes he is Earth’s anointed saviour.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Tax take

Further to Robert Cooper’s letter (11 April) regarding the winter heating payment being made and then recouped via the tax code, I also received such a letter and it crossed my mind that if it is known my income would cause the payment to be recouped, why pay it in the first place?

Another example of the lack of joined-up thinking.

Charles Lowson, Fareham, Hants

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