Letters I: More people on Motability than ever? Really?

The Motability charity record 59,000 people losing their right to a disability vehicle since 2013 but the UK Government spokeswoman tells us more people are on the Motability scheme than before PIP was introduced – a riddle wrapped up inside an enigma for sure.

Perhaps an FOI request to the DWP could clarify.
John Robertson
Scottish Borders

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BBC chief offers little evidence in his defence case 

INTERESTING letter from Ian Small, head of public policy & corporate affairs, BBC Scotland (The National, August 18), accusing Lesley Riddoch of “supposition, half-truth and ill-informed speculation”. My goodness!

Mr Small, in BBC manner, tells us many things, without “evidence” in his letter – we just have to believe! Why? His letter is full of speculation – phrases like “will have”, “we may also recruit”, “aims to achieve”, “sense of anticipation”, so redolent of recent unfulfilled promises from the British establishment.

Maybe he’d like to explain what he means by “creativity of that commissioning editorial team” and, while he does, could he define the meaning of “impartiality”, as many appear to have forgotten, which could explain why Scotland is the least satisfied nation in the UK with BBC output.
Bill McLean
Dunfermline

WILLIAM HAGUE, as quoted in The National (Hague tells May to take ‘liberal’ Brexit approach, August 18) states that Brexit could become “the greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK”.

Yet, in trying to formulate a form for Brexit – because to the EU and to Theresa May Brexit means Brexit – William Hague offers no detailed pointers, let alone specifics on “free trade” in a Brexit context.

He runs through a number of muddled epithets – “secure a good deal”, “strong free-trade agreement”, “very robust free-trade agreement”, “with the right attitude on migration, I think, it’s possible to reach the right solution on trade”.

In that he does not add anything of clarification and is as woolly as Theresa May in her utterance that no deal is better than a bad deal!

He highlights the now “emboldened EU negotiators” as a problem, for the UK Government no doubt, but that is to be expected. The UK in the EU has the “best deal” on offer and the EU will not dot the i’s or cross the t’s for No 10. The UK has to spell out in detail its ideas, requests, but certainly not demands.

Its already convoluted muddled-thinking proposals, put forward by David Davis in his constructive ambiguity document, have been laughed off as fantasy. The proposals for a border-no border with the Irish Republic just increases the muddle.
John Edgar
Stewarton

BEFORE alcohol is banned from airports and flights people should stop to think about speed bumps on our roads. These came about by a minority of drivers not having a proper deterrent, with the result we all got punished – ie, with speed bumps.

The same situation will apply to all decent air travellers by a drunken minority again caused by soft sentences by our courts.

Airports should have the authority to breathalyse passengers who they suspect of having drank too much.
John Connor
Dunfermline

I TOTALLY agree with Peter A Bell’s long letter (August 17) where he states that independence is not about which policies it should contain or how the financing of Scotland should be organised. Scotland has its own parliament, democratically elected by its people. What that parliament does not have is total sovereignty. It still has an overriding ruling body in the English Westminster parliament.

These political handcuffs need to be removed if we want to decide our own policies and financial arrangements and to which currency we might align the Scottish coin. Peter A Bell’s description of what Scotland handed back to Westminster in 2014 is quite chilling to read. We allowed Cameron and his government to decide what the No vote actually meant, after the vote was cast! Also, as Selma Rahman points out in her letter (August 17), a decent percentage of the Scottish population was not born in Scotland.

However, we are still a part of its population and so will always be included in all local and national votes despite what others before her might have suggested. A fair and equal independent Scotland is what we will be fighting for, not a segregated Scotland based on race, creed, or religion or sexual orientation.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife

CURRENTLY performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the one-man show by Andy Paterson, 3000 Trees: The Death of Mr William MacRae. Willie MacRae was a high profile, some might say controversial, figure in the SNP and a thorn in the side of the Establishment.

I have known about this incident for many years and, like many of your older readers in all probability, I subscribe to the belief that he was “silenced by the State” for being about to expose corruption in high places.

In my many years of hill-walking I would frequently pass the spot on the A87 (The Road to the Isles) where MacRae’s car, with him mortally wounded inside, was found on April 6, 1985. In those days there was an informal cairn at the roadside and I would stop for a moment of reflection. I believe there is now a “proper” cairn to mark the spot.

What was noticeable at the performance was that the audience was mostly of my generation. It would be most unfortunate if this dark episode of state dirty business was forgotten by the younger generation. We need martyrs to provide inspiration and we could start by giving publicity to the anniversary of his death.
J F Davidson
Bonnyrigg