Letters I: Common sense from PM, now let’s have some more

The UK’s fastest growing industry is food banks yet we persist in developing expensive weapons which can’t be used, on building an expensive railway system that benefits few, and on subsidising an expensive, anachronistic elite who are growing exponentially.

James Mills
Johnstone

WOMEN Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) is a campaign group for women born in the 1950s suffering disproportionately the financial consequences of state pension age equality. Can it expect support from none other than our new PM, Teresa May, a women herself born in the 1950s? Alas when I heard the now former pensions minister Baroness Altmann speak on Radio Scotland she said she was the only person in the cabinet showing any support for the plight of these women.

Catriona Clark
Banknock

Christian Institute must look within for intolerance

COLIN Hart of the Christian Institute says about the decision to amend the named persons law that Christian families face “intolerance from government officials” (Court gives Scottish Government 42 days to amend named persons law,

The National, July 29).

The irony of this comment is staggering. It is the Christian Institute that is intolerant. Homophobia creeps into almost everything it does. It seeks to return Scotland to the past, a past where women knew their place and bigotry was rife. The Christian Institute is afraid the scheme would prevent it from filling children’s heads with hateful, nasty propaganda.

It is afraid that were children to go to school and spout homophobic insults, the authorities would step in, as the authorities should do. It is a fact that most bigotry is learned from close familial contacts such as parents. Raising a child to be a close-minded, hateful, bigoted adult should be cause for intervention.

Peter McAllister
Methil

FORTY years in teaching gave me a feel for the extent to which middle-class parents sweep family problems under the carpet. Many educated, comfortably off, possibly “Christian” parents are probably as likely to require a named person as under-educated, poor parents.

Perhaps the Christian Institute would care to comment on this.

John P Ross
Via email

THANK you Lesley Riddoch for keeping the issue of the democratic deficit in Scotland in the public eye, and the Boundary Commission’s obsession with raw numbers. (We need a vigorous debate – and soon – on a proper system of local government, The National, July 28).

Yes, the centralising SNP Government missed a “trick” in the Community Empowerment Act regarding community councils having a common role throughout our country. Yes, we need a debate about our democracy and the gaps in it. One aspect of the debate that needs to be look at seriously is “subsidiarity”. That is devolving decision-making to the most appropriate and locally meaningful level.

I have sympathy with the suggestion that the people of Argyll and Bute would be better served by five or six more local councils. However, do we want five or six roads authorities in Argyll and Bute? I am sure there are many residents of Argyll and Bute who remember fondly

Strathclyde Roads.

We also have to note that the number of councillors in any give local authority is based on the number of registered electors, not the population. Differences between the two can impact on many services.

The Boundary Commission deals only with the number of electors, not the population, and very rarely with communities. But that is its remit from parliament, so we need to change the statute that gives it that remit. Incidentally, vigorous lobbying and argument by Stirling Council and many community councils in West Stirlingshire resulted in the Boundary Commission backtracking on its proposal to link rural Strathendrick with urban Gargunnock. Sound arguments do bear fruit against entrenched bureaucracy – sometimes.

Willie Oswald
Strathblane Community
Council member
Blanefield

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s demagogic speech at the Democratic convention presented a rose-coloured picture of America that is out of touch with reality.

It began with a self-congratulatory listing of the supposedly progressive achievements of his nearly eight years in office, during which poverty has increased, social inequality has reached new heights and the country has been continuously at war.

Showing his contempt for the intelligence of the American people, he concluded by repeating the slogans of his 2008 election campaign, “Yes we can” and “the audacity of hope,” as though America in 2016 was the realisation of the empty promises he made back then, and began to betray even before assuming office.

Needless to say, words such as drone assassination, Guantanamo, indefinite detention, NSA spying and Wall Street bailout were not to be heard.

A major theme was the “breaking of the glass ceiling,” represented by the nomination of a woman to head one of the major party’s presidential tickets. No-one, however, has attempted to explain how or why the gender of a particular politician has any bearing on the policies he or she pursues. There is zero evidence that being a female increases the likelihood that a leader will pursue progressive policies.

Being a woman, or for that matter a gay or transgender person, does not alter the objective class role one plays as the chief executive of the American imperialist state, presiding over brutal wars abroad and grinding poverty and inequality at home.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

I AM delighted that the issue of pavement cycling is starting to gain some coverage. Statistics surrounding the subject are complex and confusing, but there does seem to be some good evidence that elderly pedestrians are at increased risk of significant injury from collisions with cyclists. 

I appreciate the risk cyclists face on the roads, but as an elderly pedestrian I’m not happy for that risk to be transferred on to me.

Maybe I just have to accept that a walk to the Post Office requires me to put on a crash helmet and body armour.

Derek Ball
Bearsden