ANDREW Crombie says infrastructure like trams is expensive (Letters, August 22), but isn’t expense relative to the benefits gained?

I opposed the trams in Edinburgh because of the inordinate expense of construction, borne out by the final bill. But we now have the key infrastructure in place. Doesn’t it make sense to expand the network to move towards the economies of scale that would make it more cost-effective?

And shouldn’t we balance the cost with the significant environmental impact gains we benefit from?

Twenty mph zones are part of the solution in city centres. Wouldn’t the real gain be from banning private cars and moving people transfers onto the excellent public transport already in place?

Why not more trams, efficient low emission buses and removing all public parking spaces for cars within the city centre?

If the council is truly interested in improving the city environment would it be prepared to lose the cash cow that is parking spaces for private cars within the city centre, and encourage more transfers on to public transport to help make it more cost-effective?
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

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We should teach kids all aspects of our history

CAT Boyd is one of many who in recent years have accused the Scottish people of being in denial about the darker elements of our own history: in particular involvement in slavery and imperialism (It’s about time that Scotland confronted it’s own racist, colonial past, The National, August 22).

It’s true that when I was taught about the triangular trade many years ago the focus was on Plymouth, Bristol and Liverpool. However, at no point did we learn about events north of the Border, in any context.

We learned about Roman Britain but not about the struggle for cultural and political supremacy between the Picts and the Gaels. We learned about the Tolpuddle Matryrs but not the 1820 Martyrs; about the Peterloo massacre in Manchester but not the much more widespread Radical Wars in and around Glasgow; about Thomas Paine but not Thomas Muir. About every English monarch from Edward the Confessor through the Plantagenets and Tudors down to the present incumbent. Nothing about the Celtic kings; about the Stewarts only from the time they popped up out of nowhere in London.

Ignorance about Scottish history is general, not specific to shameful episodes. There may be a vague awareness that a lot of everyday objects were invented in Scotland but how many remember the philosophy of universal literacy which underpinned these inventions? That Scotland passed one of the first Acts in the world aspiring towards compulsory education? That at the time of the Treaty of Union Scotland had five universities serving one million while England had only two for a population of five million? That many Catholics and Jews came to Scotland to study while only Anglicans were welcome at Oxford and Cambridge?

The Treaty of Union abruptly cut off the trade Scotland had carried on for centuries with France, Flanders, Germany and Russia because of the hostile relations between these countries and England. This caused a big downturn in the Scottish economy.

In time, Scotland found new outlets with Britain’s expanding colonies. Although the political, legal and educational structures put in place in the colonies were based on English practice, the Scots were enthusiastic line managers. In 1851 Scotland had only 16 per cent of the population of England and Wales but Scots held 25 per cent of the government posts in India. Their over-representation in governing distant outposts was down to the conflict between a highly-educated workforce and the lack of decision-making posts within the boundaries of Scotland itself.

Let’s teach our children about all aspects of our history: the good, the bad, the sources of shame and the sources of pride.
Mary McCabe
Glasgow

FOR many years the mainstream media has deliberately tried to associate Scottish nationalism and the SNP with the nasty narrow nationalism that exists in other parts of the world. Many deliberately miscall the SNP the Scottish Nationalist Party in order to highlight issues of divisiveness, inward-looking separatism and even racism. With continued media onslaughts people become brainwashed into believing what they continually see promulgated in the press and on the BBC. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet, so the saying goes.

I guarantee, however, that if botanists, the press and the BBC conspired to depict the rose as a weed – a thorn-laden menace that leeches from the soil and stops other plants from flourishing – it would not take many years before roses began to be regarded that way and gradually disappeared from our gardens. When Nicola Sturgeon said she wished we could change the name of the SNP, therefore, I was delighted (The National, August 18).

As a lifelong supporter of independence, and a current SNP member, I have always been uneasy with the nastier connotations of nationalism. Scotland does not have to fight to be a nation. It already is a nation and has been for many more years than England.

What it does need to fight for is the chance to be an independent nation while peacefully coexisting with its neighbours and retaining an outward-looking focus towards other nations of the world.

Changing the name to the Scottish Independence Party would not stop attacks but would give a clear signal that our aim: to have the independence, for good or ill, to determine our own governance and social and political direction, rather than accept that we are, in virtually every aspect of our life, subservient to the British establishment.
Ann McClintock
Kilmun

WHEN the Scottish National Party was formed in 1934, the meaning of word “national” was used to indicate that Scotland was a nation that deserved to stand on its own feet. Since then, the meaning of the word has changed. It is now internationally associated, with odious forms of nationalism.

The original intention of the name can be restored by renaming the SNP the Scottish Nation Party. The name would revive the original intent; express the inclusive nature of the party; and avoid misunderstanding abroad.

The removal of misinterpretation will honour the historical context of the party, open its doors to wider membership, and make sense at a time that the SNP needs friends amongst states that it hopes will be its fellow member states in the European Union.
Dirk Bolt
Aberfeldy