Letters to The National, September 7: Shocking image is moving us to question the UK Government’s feeble response to refugee crisis

The media talks about “the iconic photograph”, but most do not show this one. This is the true iconic photograph which sticks in the minds of people. It has already moved people to question the UK Government’s feeble approach to the migrant problem and that is the reason why it must be published.

Somehow most of the media have decided that we, the public, are to be prevented from seeing it and, with a skewed logic, protected from ourselves.

Jim Williamson
East Kilbride

THE tragic and unnecessary death of an innocent three-year-old boy who drowned while fleeing war-torn Syria with his parents contrasts sharply with the inhumane actions of Trident-obsessed, Union flag-waving David Cameron, who resolutely refuses to help the refugees.

This wee boy, like many others in this human tragedy, had his whole life ahead of him. RIP Alan. You will not be forgotten.

William C McLaughlin
Biggar

WHAT David Cameron is proposing is utterly shameful. He will offer help to people who are already in UN camps where they have some form of shelter and aid from the United Nations, Unicef, Red Crescent and Red Cross; but he will turn his back on those who are walking along railway lines without food and water and no shelter.

It seems he doesn’t want to go into the water, just dabble his toes in the edge. And he’s only willing to do that if he can still keep them dry.

Is it not about time that we, in Scotland, stuck up two fingers at Cameron; started up a fund to pay for the Rosyth Ferry to go to Zeebrugge and pick up a load of these needy people; then bring them back to Scotland and help provide primary aid for them? This would boost the efforts and funding already proposed by our First Minister.

I expect there are many communities in England, Ireland and Wales who are equally frustrated by Cameron’s dithering and his denial of what the electorate really wants him to do. I would not be at all surprised if, following such a lead from us, ferries started crossing from Newcastle and Hull also in defiance of our Tory dictator.

Please set up such a fund if you can. If you do, I hereby promise you £100 (approximately the equivalent of one week’s pension.) Regretfully my home is too small to offer accommodation.

CJ Kerr
Address supplied

I ALMOST choked on my coffee when I saw Willie Rennie and Ruth Davidson holding “We Have Room” placards in support of our willingness to accept refugees fleeing hell in Syria.

It's amazing how suddenly these two have found a conscience. Not long ago they openly supported the bedroom tax that saw disabled people threatened with eviction if they refused to pay £14 a week for “in most cases” a box room that was used either for their disability equipment or for use as a bedroom for a disabled child in the family.

Without the commonsense intervention of the Scottish Government we would have witnessed scenes reminiscent of the Highland Clearances.

Rennie and Davidson also supported (and still do) the brutal “fit for work” assessments on disabled and terminally ill people. How on earth these two MSPs, whose combined contribution to Scottish politics could be written on the back of a postage stamp, expect us to believe that suddenly they have concern for the destitute, beggars belief.

Chas McArdle
Wishaw

IT is interesting to hear George Osborne claim that the UK has given more humanitarian aid to refugees fleeing conflict in North Africa/Middle East than any other European nation.

Funnily enough, he does not seem to want to mention that the UK has dropped more bombs in these war-torn countries than any other European nation, thus creating the political vacuum that has led to the creation of Isis.

Jimmy Laing
Lossiemouth

I CAN’T recall Nicola Sturgeon telling us she’d been “reduced to tears” by Bashar al-Assad’s various massacres or by the atrocities carried out by Islamic State.

Whether she did or not, we should have supported the Syrian rebels when we had the chance and destroyed IS when they were small-time.

The First Minister was opposed to us doing either and now risks boosting people-traffickers, criminal gangs and economic migrants via her desire to see thousands more refugees coming into Britain.? ?

Keith Gilmour
Glasgow

DOES anyone think that it’s time for the independence movement to have a new emblem or totem?

The SNP sheep wrapped in her /his Scottish flag is very cute. And I do get the point that the sheep in Scotland probably have access to more land than the humans do. But the sheep does look more like a relative of Shaun the Sheep than a crusading independence supporter.

Thistles are great and very photogenic, but not exactly pro-active.

So how about the sea eagle? Poisoned and shot to extinction by landowners and gamekeepers. the last one was shot on Shetland in 1917. Now making a comeback, first on Rhum in 1975, Wester Ross 1993, and now in Fife from 2007.

The birds are slow to mature, taking five years of careful monitoring from release to adulthood. The first breeding pair for 200 years were sighted in eastern Scotland recently. Their success is still vulnerable to shooting and poisoning, loss of wetland habitat and environmental pollution.

Does their progress parallel that of the independence movement? I look forward to the day when a sea eagle landing in George Square is no longer newsworthy.

Pat Mackenzie
East Kilbride

JOHN Prescott’s intervention during the indyref declaring the proposed creation of a GB football team had me up out of my seat cheering. The one thing that would get many Daily Labour readers on the Yes side would be the disillusion of their “national” team. A couple of No voters actually approached me saying “you’ll be gutted then” about Scotlandshire's result in the fitba’. I couldn’t care less! In fact, I agree with Prescott – we should have a GB team!

This “national” team only helps the BritNat press maintain the illusion that Scotland is already somehow a country and that the Scottish Government has some clout.

We may have our own legal and education system, but the only place in the world where Scotland is recognised as a country is within the minds of these fitba’ fans.

Mark Harper
Dysart

I WAS very glad to read of Black Triangle’s campaign to raise awareness among GPs of their role in protecting vulnerable people from the DWP’s flawed work capability assessments (GPs urged to help the most vulnerable, The National, September 4).

While I appreciate that the British Medical Association is completely opposed to these assessments and wants to see them scrapped, this is not going to happen overnight and the organisation should work to mitigate the worst harms caused by the current system.

Joan Brown
Edinburgh

DOES it sound strange to other readers that, mainly due to our “cloudy summer climate”, most or all of us are short of vitamin D (Lesley Riddoch: Shortage of vitamin D is ruining our health, The National, August 27), when our ancestors have lived often strong and healthy lives under similar skies for a good few thousand years?

Yes, supplementation where necessary but perhaps, before thinking of indiscriminate mass medication, we should consider the reintroduction of adequate amounts of traditional fats into our diet? After all, vitamin D is fat-soluble and adequate amounts of fats are needed for its efficient utilisation by the body. Did our great-grandmothers trim the fat off their mutton, I wonder?

Perhaps, too, we should also consider restricting our carbohydrate intake sufficiently for our skin to acquire enough sun tolerance to have less need of sun screens and so be able to make better use of the vitamin D-generating properties of sunshine, even given the grey skies of Scotland?

Interestingly, MS, bowel disease, arthritis and many other conditions have been shown to respond favourably to a low enough carbohydrate diet that allows traditional fats and protein according to appetite.

Valerie Waters
East Lothian