I WAS born and raised in 1950s Govan a few years after the end of World War Two and the founding of the welfare state. Despite the devastation and food rationing the country had to cope with, the spectre of hunger and people sleeping rough was rare.Yes, there was the occasional “back court singer” or “lobby dosser”, but on the whole prospects for all were greater than my grandparents’ generation had endured.

The NHS was founded and the health of the country was improved greatly. The utilities, railways, all the great industries in which we led the world belonged to the nation. Local authorities built new homes for their people and life improved for almost everyone. The establishment was under control.

As the rest of the world caught up, the total lack of investment by the previous owners began to take its toll. While my grandfather and his sons were working in the 1960s with machinery manufactured as far back as the 1860s, the previous owners were taking the compensation payments and investing in competing industries and companies abroad.

As the Labour Party relied more on the elite rather than their real power base, they lost their way and the support of the workers began to wane. The resultant mess left the way open for the return of the establishment forces in the form of Maggie Thatcher’s parcel of rouges.

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She managed to convince the workers that the trade unions which had improved their lives were evil. She next convinced them they should all become property-owning Tories as a result of selling off the nation’s housing stock at bargain prices along with our industries, jobs and utilities.What you got in return was small increases in tax allowances for you, and greater tax allowances for those who do not need them.

As I near my seventies I fear for the future of our children and grandchildren and I would urge my fellow pensioners to think on this.

The UK is supposed to be a rich country, but only for the few. Our children face a life of increasing poverty, increased numbers of food banks, more homeless people, poor prospects, decreasing protection and low pay at work, utilities owned by foreign companies and governments who take the profits and improve their own infrastructures abroad.

We need to wake up, and fast. We need to increase support for and power of the Scottish Government to counter this outcome for England, and the rest will soon be under the control of the type of government that the great majority of Scottish residents find repulsive.
T Ryan
Milton of Campsie

THE National is a paper born out of the independence movement with an aim of alleviating the anti-independence mainstream media bias. It gives platform to left-wing voices that other papers don’t, and it is for this reason that I subscribe to the paper.

However, your recent reporting on Corbyn and the Labour Party has contradicted such values. For example out of the last 10 headlines where Corbyn is mentioned eight were done so in a negative way whilst two were neutral.

Corbyn has suffered significantly more media bias than any other British opposition leader in history. According to a study carried out LSE, 57% of all news stories about Corbyn are negative with 24% being described as antagonistic and only 9% favourable. Front-page headlines have relentlessly described him a traitor, a terrorist, a communist

(as if that’s a bad thing), a Russian agent (in doing so they are also inciting hate towards Russian people), as well as many more lies and smears. This has contributed to a spike of far-right violence on left-wingers and trade unionists including a plot to kill Corbyn himself. This is no joke.

He has been elected as Labour leader twice on landslide victories. Hundreds of thousands of people have joined the party, making Labour the biggest party in Europe. Millions voted Labour last year and they have the second biggest number of MPs.

By all means criticise him. I have criticisms of him. However, by doing it relentlessly with antagonistic tone, you are doing the dirty work of the British ruling class and letting down your supporters and readers. Please stop doing that.
Ross Walker
Co-editor, Revolution Scotland magazine

WELL. At least Corbyn can’t be accused of being politically opportunistic (Labour in turmoil as Jeremy Corbyn says he would still leave the EU if he were PM, December 23). The interesting thing is, in mainland Europe the main opposition to the EU is from the left. Corbyn’s views are consistent with this. In the British state, opposition to the EU is mainly from the right (Jim Sillars is an example of leftist opposition. Right and left have different reasons for either supporting or opposing the EU.

I am actually more incensed by McDonnell’s envisaged opportunistic ducking and diving with the DUP than by Corbyn’s honest if politically inept own goal.
Joan Savage
via thenational.scot