DOUGLAS Ross’s manipulation of Jonnie Hall’s answer to his loaded question has caused Scottish Conservatives and the National Farmers Union Scotland to have a “dust up” in the car park, which is never a pretty sight. Respect is due to the NFUS, for pulling up the exceptionalist political class for flagrant gross misrepresentation of the facts.

It is obvious that the question was deliberately constructed to ensure Mr Hall delivered the positive response desired, and provide Mr Ross with an answer he could use, or in this instance misuse.

This is a huge insight into Mr Ross’s mindset of what is appropriate and fair when dealing with, a group friendly to the Scottish office of the UK Conservative and Unionist party. I predict the Scottish Conservatives will find it difficult to get someone at the NFUS to pick up the phone in the near future.

READ MORE: Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross 'misled' public on food standards

What a disgraceful way to manipulate a friend – how would he treat someone he didn’t like?

Mr Ross is not my cup of tea politically, and my heart is therefore with the people of Moray who voted for him such a short time ago in December 2019. Some observers have said “well, they voted for him, they need to deal with the downside”. The 78,000-strong Moray electorate that voted deserves better.

How can a constituent trust the answers they receive from Mr Ross and his office?

Alistair Ballantyne
Birkhill, Angus

DOES Douglas Ross have any idea that he has jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?

What he and his Tory friends did by voting to block a ban on lower standard food imports into the UK is much worse than voting to reduce Scottish food standards; they have abandoned their constituents to compete against produce from countries with lower costs and standards of animal welfare and food production than those Scottish farmers and processors must meet before their product is even allowed to be offered for sale to the public.

John Jamieson
South Queensferry

SO Douglas Ross will “stand up” to his boss in Westminster? He must think our heids zip up the back!

The time for Douglas Ross and his cohort to flex their muscles was when Theresa May had a wafer-thin majority in 2017. A (slightly) resurgent “Scottish” Tory party got her over the line.

Yet Douglas Ross et al simply rolled over and were out-manoeuvred by Arlene Foster’s DUP who, with less seats than the “Scottish” Tories, secured a billion pounds worth of funding for Northern Ireland.

Fast forward to now and Douglas Ross can vote against Boris every time if he so chooses, as it matters not a jot. Boris has a majority that would make Kim Jong-Un blush.

Sadly, for the most part, the hypocrisy and ineptitude of the “Scottish” Tories is glossed over and each new leader is breathlessly welcomed as the one who will, finally, be the “Hammer of the Nats” the British establishment craves.

And with news that the new Director General of the BBC is a former Tory candidate and Tory office bearer, it doesn’t appear that situation will change any time soon.

Kevin Cordell
Broughty Ferry, Dundee

HAMISH MacQueen’s letter of August 31 contains a mild criticism of Carolyn Leckie for what he called “a slight error” by attributing the NHS to Nye Bevan. He suggested instead that it was actually “Liberal Lord Beveridge who proposed it in 1942 during the war” although he then admits that Bevan introduced it into parliament and managed to fight off doctors in the private sector who were against it.

Perhaps Hamish is also making a slight error by failing to mention the first successful introduction of a fully operational health service in the UK decades before the NHS; a service both Bevan and Beveridge must have known about.

The Highlands and Islands Medical Service (HMS) provided healthcare to a population covering half of Scotland’s landmass from its launch in 1913 until the creation of the NHS in 1948 – 35 years later. Although treatment was not free, unlike NHS Scotland that succeeded it, it was much superior to any other existing service available at that time. Fees were set at minimal levels and people could still get treated even if they were unable to pay.

It is understood that Bevan had to fight off the Tories to get the NHS established in England, and yet they are currently ruling the roost at Westminster despite exhibiting all the duplicitous tendencies of their creed and its lust for the fortunes to come from the sale of our NHS. It’s not in the least surprising that the Conservatives have not won an election in Scotland for 65 years.

Bruce Moglia
Bridge of Weir

I HAVE to comment on Hamish MacQueen’s criticism of Carolyn Leckie. The Beveridge Report, titled Social Insurance and Allied Services, authored by William Henry Beveridge in 1942 was the basis of the NHS and was piloted through parliament by Nye Bevan.

However, we Scots need to remember the role of Tom Johnston, wartime Secretary of State for Scotland. The following extract from Gordon Brown’s foreword in the recent biography of Tom Johnston is relevant:

“If he had stayed on after his great achievement of the first part of the 1940s – to lay the foundations for a National Health Service in Scotland in advance of the UK – he would have been far better recognised by historians, but also by his contemporaries and indeed the Scottish people, as the architect of the NHS alongside Aneurin Bevan.”

In the pre-1945 years Tom Johnston was insisting on an NHS that was free at the point of need.

Beverage was indeed a Liberal, elected MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed from 1944 to 1945, and was elevated to the Lords in 1946.

Willie Oswald
Blanefield