GREGG Russell’s article about possible Scottish Government problems in rolling out superfast broadband is informative, but says nothing about the context in which this is all happening (Delivering superfast broadband to last 5% will be government’s ‘toughest hurdle’, September 20).
Telecommunications, which includes broadband speed and mobile phone signal strength, is a UK Government responsibility. It has not been devolved. Their policy is to encourage telecoms companies, like BT Openreach, to invest in improvements on the assumption they will make profits once the improved service is available. Where this is unlikely, eg in rural areas, the UK Government may consider funding improvements. However, they are perfectly happy for other bodies such as the Scottish Government, councils and communities to fund improvements. This means that where these bodies do fund the improvements they are making up for a UK Government refusal to discharge their retained responsibility.
This fact doesn’t get much publicity and I’m not sure if even David Mundell is aware of it. Some months ago we received a Conservative Party leaflet in which Mr Mundell said he would be fighting for improved broadband services in Scottish rural areas. Given that it is a UK Government responsibility and Mr Mundell allegedly looks after Scotland’s interests there, was he planning to fight with himself?
As an aside, last year I met an elderly gent who had been brought up in the same community as Mr Mundell. He assured me that his family name was pronounced as “Mundle”, rhyming with “muddle”. I cannot confirm if it is true, but if it is, it somehow seems appropriate.
One last point – Nigel Macdonald seems to think that Hector Maclean and myself responded to Carolyn Ritchie’s Long Letter on September 20 about P1 testing with “personal attacks” (Letters, September 24). Whilst I normally have no objection to seeing my name in print, I have to say that in this case – it wisnae me (could he have meant Douglas Turner?)
Douglas Morton
Lanark
READ MORE: Scottish Government's 'toughest hurdle' in delivering superfast broadband to last 5%
I WOULD like to thank Dougie Gray (Letters, September 25) for his comments on my earlier communication and thereby widening out the subject under discussion. He obviously has more knowledge than I of the vagaries of property letting and its very real pitfalls.
However I would make the point that various sets of circumstances which he describes, like Capital Gains Tax, would be excellent subjects, along with points which I raised, for in-depth consideration and subsequent changes in the law in an independent Scotland. Until that is achieved we can only do the best we can under the present devolved powers.
I would also make the point that I did not advocate forced sales of property; I suggested “a compulsory order of some sort”, which would again depend on what was available under the law as it then stood.
Once independence has been achieved all sorts of changes will be available for consideration under the altered financial situation after we are no longer required to co-finance some of the Westminster instigated expenditure.
George M Mitchell
Dunblane
READ MORE: Letters: Keeping properties empty is no money-spinner
OUR radios have been full of PPI ads for many years (centuries it seems). There is a whole industry built around promises from claims companies to get your mis-sold payment protection insurance back for you. Now it is morphing into mis-sold time shares. Sometimes they intimate they can find money for you even if you don’t think you ever had a policy.
In 2019 will we all be entitled to massive pay-outs for BBI? Blatant Brexit Incompetence. Bonkers Brexit Imbecility. Blind Brexit Idiocy. Take your pick...
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
I WAS enjoying Graeme Virtue’s front-page review of Bodyguard in Sunday’s Seven Days till I read “...there is no shortage of official sounding acronyms being bandied about like PPO (Police Protection Officer) and PNC (Police National Computer)”.
Perhaps the writer might benefit from a visit from the Grammar Police to remind him that an acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a group of words – commonly cited examples being Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and radar (radio detecting and ranging).
PPO and PNC are not words, so should be described as abbreviations or simply initials, but never as acronyms.
To help me get over this grammatical error, I turned to page eight of Seven Days to read the article on public service broadcasting by Stuart Cosgrove, who I regard as among Scotland’s most entertaining and erudite broadcaster/author/journalists. You need only read his definitive books on soul music – Detroit 67 and Memphis 68 – to appreciate his dedication to painstaking accuracy, yet even Stuart Cosgrove repeated Mr Virtue’s schoolboy error when he referred to public service broadcasting as being “better known by its industry-wide acronym, PSB”. For the first time I wondered, maybe Stuart isn’t a saint after all.
Ged Holmyard
via email
READ MORE: Bodyguard is a victory for Netflix as much as it is the BBC
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