Readers' Letters: Where was the 'None of the Above' option on ballot papers?

All parties however have said we should vote for them to stop another party getting in. That’s not politics. It’s childish behaviour. The electorate deserve better.

What we needed on the ballot paper was a box with “None of the Above”. Politicians need to earn our vote and I’m afraid this electoral campaign has shown that none are worthy.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

No Celtic alliance

It is a real problem for all of us when the SNP in general and John Swinney in particular seek to differentiate Scots from the rest of the British population on fictitious racial grounds. During the election campaign he suggested establishing a so-called “Celtic alliance” seeking to break up the UK. We aren’t Celts. We are Heinz 57, or Allsorts without the liquorice. The very idea of breaking up the United Kingdom in times of such uncertainty is frankly terrifying. Anyone who doesnt think so must live in a cave.

We have the Russians trying their damndest to conquer their next-door neighbour, Ukraine and always seeking ways of undermining us in the UK; we have not one but two governments who are trying desperately to undermine our energy security and leave us prey to cold, winter weather with no power; we have the Unite States pulling back from defending Europe and an EU which is always trying to bully us into bending the knee, ably abetted by Keir Starmer.

The SNP’s solution to everything is independence, just like Ireland. Well, writing about their role model, the Irish Republic, an Irish academic says, that after independence in 1922, “Had Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, its citizens would have enjoyed a greater level of welfare....than it did under a native government.” Tellingly, he reports that, “the high price was unexpected, independence having been portrayed as the panacea which would solve all of Ireland’s problems.” Sound familiar?

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Neverendum

John Swinney put independence at the heart and soul of his 2026 campaign, largely one suspects because he could hardly fight on the disastrous SNP performance over the last 20 years in government. Polls initiually supported a view that the SNP might end up with a majority of seats, and that being the case, he would seek a referendum in 2028.

We’ll find out today, but if the latest polls, which predict he will fall short of a majority, prove correct, then voters will have rejected his push for a referendum. That being the case, will he finally admit defeat, give us all peace about independence and get on with the job of delivering for Scots and Scotland?

I suspect instead he will use whatever support he has to push for a referendum, ignoring that fact the majority did not support his desire for yet another referendum. Neverendum indeed.

I won’t hold my breath, which is just as well given the performance of the Scottish Ambulance Service after two decades of SNP control.

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

Mental health

Next week marks Mental Health Awareness Week 2026. Led by the Mental Health Foundation, it is focused on the theme “Take Action”, looking at what proactive steps individuals can take to promote good mental health. This is a major, nation-wide initiative involving schools, workplaces, and communities.

The week also marks the first few days for our newly elected MSPs, and, as a collection of organisations that support vulnerable children and young people, we urge them to make mental health a key priority.

Parity of esteem is vital, ensuring mental health needs are addressed with the same urgency as physical ones. Placing mental health on an equal footing with physical health will ensure equal access to funding and quality of care. While recognised in policy, Scotland still fails to fully achieve this.

Our mental health services frequently face lower funding relative to their disease burden, and if unaddressed, those children and young people with mental health problems will carry this into adulthood.

The costs of failing to address mental health problems are well-established. For example, those affected are more likely to be unemployed, homeless, get caught up in the criminal justice system, or be in extremely costly long-term care.

Our new MSPs have an incredible responsibility, and we urge them to make tackling the mental health emergency their number one priority.

The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition: Patrick Gannon; Lynn Black; Kenny Graham; Niall Kelly, Edinburgh

Reliable power

As the CEO of Highview, an energy storage organisation, one would expect that Richard Butland would wax lyrical about needing adequate storage for excess renewables electricity (Scotsman, 4 May). He says that “without storage, we remain dependent on gas-fired power stations”. Yes, but we also remain critically dependent on other forms of electricity production.

In the last year unreliable wind and solar, despite 11,000 wind turbines and millions of solar panels and 1.3 per cent hydro, could only produce 43.4 per cent of UK electricity. Building another 11,000 will not make this figure 86.8 per cent.

In the last year reliable gas produced 26.5 per cent, reliable nuclear 12.8 per cent, reliable Drax 7.5 per cent and the reliable Interconnector from Europe 9.9 per cent. It needs to be strongly emphasised that gas, nuclear, Drax and the Interconnector from Europe are not weather-dependent whereas wind and solar are.

As for turbines being green, this is a monstrous cover-up since 800,000 tons of wind turbine blades are dumped in UK landfill every year. The figures for the world is 40 to 45 million tons of turbine blades each 80-100 meters long and weighing 15 to 25 tons apiece.

Not green, not cheap and certainly not reliable.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Interconnected

I agree with everything Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob says (Letters, 6 May), but sadly I think there is an element of wishful thinking in his letter.

We all know that British/European Jews are not responsible for Israeli war crimes, or for attacks against Iran and Lebanon. It has been suggested that Iranian agents are responsible for some anti-Jewish attacks in the UK and that may well be true, and these attacks certainly seem to have increased since the US/Israeli attacks on Iran.

These factors tend to suggest that in today’s interconnected world, actions have consequences that are quickly felt all around the world. It may be unfair, unreasonable, unjust, whichever term one cares to use, but to doggedly deny the connection is to stretch credibility beyond breaking point.

UK/European Jews will find themselves being targeted as long as we continue to read reports of Israel’s destruction in Gaza and Lebanon.Attacks on Jews around the world would decrease in response to a less aggresive Israel.

Graham M McLeod, Kinross

Control vapes

The only shops prospering on our city streets are vaping shops who are making big profits from selling vapes to mainly young people with none of the restrictions that apply to cigarettes.

Vaping is promoted as a good aid to stopping smoking but has now become the new cigarette, marketed in bright colours and flavours to attract the younger user and is causing extensive problems in schools.

Whoever forms the new Scottish government should prioritise legislation to control vaping in the same way cigarettes are controlled.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen

Politically correct

The University of Edinburgh is to spend £359,000 on training staff members as ‘decolonisation transformation leads’. If you want a translation of this jargon, look it up. At a time when academic staff members are boycotting marking because of the university’s redundancies plan to try to alleviate its huge financial problems, this seems at least frivolous.

In a university that now has more non-academic than academic staff, there is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and sub-groups, for example. Too many people running our universities have little idea of what critical enquiry – the only proper ‘mission’, or endeavour, of a university – is. Among other things, it involves having an appreciation of historical context. Edinburgh, the university that traded for decades on its connection with the great philosopher, David Hume, dropped him like a brick for expressing, in a footnote, an opinion that is now offensive but was widely believed to be a truth at the time, in the 18th century.

The David Hume Tower was perhaps offensive because its construction required the destruction of historic buildings in George Square. Now, however, it is Hume who is cancelled, with the edifice that bore his name now imaginatively called ‘40 George Square’. Now the virtuous army of cancellers have their sights set on others of that era, and clearly will not be content until the entire Scottish Enlightenment is discredited in the eyes of the ‘right on’.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

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