Letters to The National, September 26: Is Scottish ID card a threat to our human rights?

Sadly, while her rhetoric may be wholly commendable, some of the SNP government’s current practice leaves much to be desired.

In particular, there is clear evidence of persistent non-compliance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), viz. the right to respect for private and family life. Article 8 states: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

While the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, has been speaking very approvingly of Nicola Sturgeon, I suspect that she would be absolutely horrified to discover that the SNP government is behind the scenes pushing forward with its plans to create a Scottish “super ID” database.

Based around the use of the National Entitlement Card, an ID card in all but name, and the allocation of a Unique Citizen Reference Number (UCRN) to each individual, it would then allow the government to create over time what is known as a “database state”.

This would mean that in due course an individual’s UCRN could be used to automatically link all their records: health, education, finance, tax, employment, pensions, library, DVLA, births, marriages and deaths, etc, so at the touch of a button a civil servant could get a complete dossier of anyone’s life, from cradle to grave.

This would totally destroy our individual and family privacy and drive a coach and horses through Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

Therefore if the Scottish Government genuinely wishes to defend our human rights, in deeds and words, it should immediately abandon its current Scottish super ID database state plans.

Dr John Welford 
NO2ID Edinburgh Coordinator 
Edinburgh

DAVID Cameron plans to abolish the Human Rights Act in order that the families of people such as benefit claimant Michael O Sullivan who committed suicide as a direct result of Ian Duncan Smith’s Welfare Reforms will be unable to win justice in a Court of Law.

With the overwhelming amount of evidence now against him Duncan Smith should be in the dock to explain why his policies as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions are causing such poverty and carnage.

Louise McArdle 
Wishaw

Chauffeured Jags such a sacrifice

AMID the controversy over the Volkswagen emissions deception comes news of another car-related scandal. 

While defending Michelle Mone’s use of a ministerial Jag a Government spokesman let slip that the cost of the journey “was cheaper than flagging down a black cab or even catching the underground”.

For years the public have been fooled into believing that using a Jaguar was a costly and elite form of transport, hence the huge sales of “cheaper” cars to ordinary members of the public. So when Government ministers and wannabes like Danny Alexander sold their souls for the use of a ministerial limousine they were actually doing a public service and saving the tax-payer money, yet were too modest to highlight this when criticised.

I, for one, have to own up to being highly critical of the use of these ministerial cars when clearly it was the cheapest option available, undercutting even the cheapest mass-produced budget car, taxi or Oyster card. 

Apologies, then, to all those fine, public-spirited men and women who have sacrificed their dignity over the years by travelling in such modest vehicles. That knighthood has been well-earned, Danny.

James Mills
Johnstone 

THE Prime Minister of Britain recently took the decision to kill two Britons near Raqqa in Syria (Legal challenge to Cameron over Syria drone strike killings, The National September 25).

This same prime minister has recently been described as a member of the elite ruling this country, an elite which has somewhat questionable morals.This was not always so. 

In the days after D-Day, the invasion of Europe during the climax of the Second World War, London was subjected to nine months of assault by V-I pilot-less planes filled with explosives, and thereafter the V-2 ballistic missile.

About these, the then Queen wrote to Queen Mary, her mother-in-law: “There is something very inhuman about death-dealing missiles being launched in such an indiscriminate manner.”

Iain WD Forde 
Susan Forde

I’M a bit disappointed The National seems to be following the old convention of giving space in the business pages to the extreme views of our country’s wealthy elite. Your story (Rural areas back grouse shooting, The National, September 24) was based on a tiny sample of just 266 households living in two localities with a combined land area of over twice the size of Greater Glasgow. 

The more interesting finding from this study, surely, is that in the Speyside area nearly half of people surveyed didn’t “recognise community and personal benefits from grouse shooting in their area”. The researchers then dismissed this view, saying “a proportion of the community lacked awareness”. Can you really call this “research”?

The most appropriate headline for this item would have been: “Areas of Scotland with sporting estates remain seriously depopulated”. Killing wildlife with guns is a sad spare-time activity in any event. But let’s not overlook the “dead hand” that so-called sporting estates place on rural economies, stifling enterprise and diversity. Large land owners have assembled their holdings with Mugabe-style land grabs from medieval times. The concentrated ownership of land in Scotland needs to be addressed now by breaking up large estates, but let’s start by removing that exemption from business rates which they still, bizarrely, enjoy.

Malcolm Kerr 
Brodick, Arran

GREG Brown raised a good point about the current review of local taxation being a good opportunity to introduce a land-based tax (Letters, The National, September 22). This might have a positive impact in terms of reducing tax avoidance/evasion, making land-ownership more transparent, encourage the productive use of derelict land and raise more tax in a socially just manner. 

I am aware that local authorities across Scotland are facing a financial black hole putting already over-stretched services under further pressure. I am however concerned that the opportunity to replace the Council Tax with something altogether more effective and fair will be missed. I agree with Greg Brown that there is reason to doubt the Government’s appetite for radical land and tax reform. 

Although I support the current Bill I would also argue for the amendments previously suggested within these pages. I also suspect that not replacing the Council Tax, and continuing the freeze on this tax into its ninth year, is an effective means of the government exerting financial control over all of Scotland’s local authorities: “Scotsterity”, one might call it. 

I am not convinced that all of the blame for harmful reductions in public services lies at the doors of numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.

K Wright 
Inverness

WHY do I continue to watch Question Time? I suppose like everybody else the vision of MPs answering audience questions is attractive. Last night, however, enjoyable as it was, I came to the conclusion that I was watching a foreign channel – or so it seemed. 

There was nothing here of relevance to Scottish politics. Why do I have a “national broadcaster” transmitting to me political issues that have no application to my country?

Furthermore, on BBC5 Live the follow-up to the programme seemed to be populated by xenophobic little Englanders. I regard this as an insult to myself as a listener (not a foreign eavesdropper but a supposed target listener). I can only conclude that the time is long due for a national Scottish broadcaster.

Peter Barjonas

Caithness

THE allegations in the Daily Mail about David Cameron are all pretty damning. But nobody seems to have picked up on the allegation that Lord Ashcroft was expecting to be given a senior ministerial position in the last government in return for his £8 million contribution to the Conservative Party.

David Cameron has announced the country is going to donate £100m to help the refugees in and around Syria. What I’d like to know is who will administer this money? Will it be the usually highly paid board of directors drawn from the rich and super-rich Tory faithful?

If the recent leak about Trident submarines – that they are more likely to remove the west coast of Scotland than any foreign aggressor – is true, then it should be replaced quickly. 

However, Trident is only good for one thing, and that is the annihilation of a civilian population. You can bet that any government that acts against Britain will be well out of reach, as well as the Westminster government. Therefore it should be replaced by conventional weaponry.

The Human Rights Bill is all right as it stands. However, this Bill will bring human rights under the British Parliament, and therefore could be amended at any time to suit the Tory government who, as the Lib-Dems found out, cannot be trusted.

W Horn 
Leven, Fife

ON September 3 Richard Walker, editor of The National, advised that he was stepping down from that role. I would just like to say a big thank you to Richard, and all of the team at The National.

You have worked very hard to create a genuinely national paper for Scotland and in double quick time. It must have been a rollercoaster at the start, but now, one year on from the Independence Referendum I, for one, cannot imagine the Scottish media scene without a trusty copy of The National by my side.

A heartfelt thanks to all at The National. The newspaper is a breath of fresh air, and really proves that hope will eventually win over fear.

Alastair Stewart 
Hamilton