UNBELIEVABLE for Ruth Davidson to stand at FMQs and talk about loyalty – it just shows me how brazen she is and what a brass neck she has. Either that or she was so stupid she did not realise what she was saying and what she was walking into – an open goal for Nicola.

She then talks about accountability and calls for the resignation of John Swinney – she has never been accountable even to her constituents, with her lack of constituency surgeries.

READ MORE: Ruth Davidson calls for more accountability ahead of move to un-elected House of Lords

She has no intention of being accountable at the next Scottish election, preferring to run away to the Lords for a job for life in payment for her Better Together stint for London and her reversal of everything she ever said:

– Only way to stay in the EU is to vote No

Brexit U-turn

– Boris U-turn

Red ermine coat and a job for life – and taking the Westminster gold of £350 per day – but she will vote to reform the Lords – aye right.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley

FORGET the virus – my blood pressure is rising and that makes me vulnerable. The complacency and mindset of the likes of Ruth the mooth (blinkers on) who is retiring next March at the senior age of mid-forties(!) to the safe haven that rewards unworthy people, ie a secure place in the House of Lords to sit or sleep, and by doing so be rewarded with an obscene amount of of pocket money.

As I said, my blood pressure has dramatically risen and this puts my health at risk when I have no option but to scream at the TV.

The ding dong ridiculous questioning by the opposition (Leonard included) highlights that they think the opposition’s role in government is to merely jump on anything and simply to moan. When was the last time they proposed meaningful alternatives?

READ MORE: FMQs Sketch: Ruth Davidson is back and falling into the same traps​

It’s actually quite sad. The voting system at Holyrood was arranged to allow all parties to participate and contribute to the governing of Scotland, but instead they avoid this opportunity and take the easy way out and just incessantly moan like a dog with a bone!

It’s no wonder there is no change to their popularity in Scotland. If it was first past the post they would have no presence at all in Holyrood. When will they recognise that they have an opportunity to positively influence? But what comes with success is responsibility. And as I said, it is far easier just to moan and moan and moan.

Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus

“TECHNICAL difficulties”, according to the UK Government website, was the cause of UK Covid-19 statistics not being available for the August 11 BBC and ITV six o’clock news bulletins.

While the British media was “distracted” with shortcomings of a temporary student assessment system in Scotland – which according to the cross-party education committee at Westminster had to exist in whatever system was adopted – as well as with the lack of cooperation of French authorities in preventing”illegal immigrants” from desperately crossing the perilous English Channel, more than 1000 new coronavirus cases and more than 100 deaths (following tests) were eventually posted for England.

On the same evening, another day passing without a coronavirus death in Scotland was not mentioned, either by Reporting Scotland or STV, but the Education Secretary, who had endorsed a seemingly logical assessment system with the option of free student appeals, and which in effect would have ostensibly helped to “close the attainment gap”, was generally vilified in spite of openly and honestly bowing to criticism.

Of course education is of fundamental importance to all of us, but are the continuing high number of deaths each day in England truly irrelevant to people across the UK in our supposed “family of nations”?

Perhaps an alternative proposition is that the Tory-supporting media barons now have so much control over news output across the UK that while any perceived “failings” relating to the Scottish Government are persistently highlighted, bad news stories in England are either not reported at all or are gradually buried!

Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian

I HAVE interesting email exchanges with a journalist I’ve never met and we often cross swords on the issue of racism. He thinks it doesn’t exist. I have experienced this non-existent thing throughout my life.

It’s one of the reasons I continue the exchange.

READ MORE: Yes writers and artists hit out over Hate Crime Bill

His view intrigues me. Now Rowan Atkinson is at it again. Having defended Boris Johnson’s inflammatory comments about Muslim women in burkas, he is casting himself as the guardian of free speech (Yes writers and artists hit out over Hate Crime Bill, August 11). His latest attack is on Scotland’s new hate laws.

What do Atkinson and my journo email pal have in common? They are both middle aged white men in very socially privileged positions.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

CHANCES are we’re all descended from the 50 who signed the Declaration of Arbroath (Uni traces Declaration of Arbroath descendants, August 11).

700 years provides us with 28 generations of offspring of those 50. Making reasonable

assumptions of two children in each generation of 25 years, that means more than six billion people could be descended from those 50 signatories.

Allowing generously for war, famine and plague in the last few centuries, there will today be more than three billion descendants alive. If you live in Scotland today, regardless of origin or ethnicity, there is every chance that your ancestor signed the Declaration of Arbroath.

Sandy Carmichael
Edinburgh