MICHAEL Fry’s unsubstantiated claim that the left wing is in “intellectual decline” suggests that he has tunnel vision when it comes to politics (Why are we trying to run rich Scotland on policies for the poor?, Aug 31).
The basis of his latest attack on egalitarianism depends on false divisions of the working population into classifications AB, C1, C2 etc. The true bottom line is that we all either depend on others to support us directly or by purchasing our labour or the product of our labour, or alternatively we possess sufficient means to live out our lives with surplus to pass on to our offspring so that they can do the same. How much we earn is irrelevant if we are only a few missed salary payments from the dole queue.
Only by convincing working people that they are “middle class” can the upper class protect themselves from becoming overwhelmed, and in doing so they have realigned the “centre” of politics far to the right of the divide between working and upper classes.
READ MORE: Michael Fry: Why are we trying to run rich Scotland on policies for the poor?
Mr Fry fails to properly describe the issue he addresses when he talks about income redistribution rather than redistribution of wealth. The former is probably less popular among the high-earning working class than a fair and just redistribution of wealth.
Mr Fry’s agenda appears to be to do the work of the upper class by reinforcing the rightward drift of the centre. In doing so he attacks the poorest among our population. He is not a reasonable, fair-minded centrist, he is far to the right of centre. His vision is not the independent Scotland that I strive for.
Ni Holmes
St Andrews
MICHAEL Fry seems to forget Europe has a number of Green politicians and this has done them no harm. The Green Party started not so long ago and due to global warnings their membership is only going to increase. We can argue until the cows come home about the coming together of the SNP and the Greens. I think it’s going to be a productive move for Scotland. The Greens are based on the survival of humanity where the Tories are based on greed and the House of Scroungers.
Ian Gordon
Glenrothes
WE were not surprised by the Audit Scotland blog highlighting that the number of young people waiting more than a year for treatment from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has trebled in the past year. This now amounts to almost a fifth of those seeking treatment.
Before the pandemic access to mental health treatment was already a significant issue, but Covid-19 has laid bare the scale of the challenge ahead and the major uplift in resources required. This is further supported by a staff survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, which found that more than 84% of CAMHS psychiatrists felt they did not have enough resources, while 44% felt that services were poorly staffed.
READ MORE: Young Scots forced to wait eighteen months for specialist mental health help
While we welcome the SNP-Green co-operation agreement stating that at least 1% of all frontline spend will go on CAMHS by the end of this parliamentary session, we would urge that this is implemented now.
What is also vitally required is a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention, reducing the need for costly CAMHS. However, funding restrictions have impacted on services providing these.
The impact of the pandemic on the mental wellbeing of many of our young people is not yet fully understood, but figures issued last month indicating that self-harm among the young in Scotland was at its the highest level for 14 years may be a sign of things to come.
We are facing a full-blown mental health crisis and our children and young people are bearing the brunt of this. They must be able to access the services they need when they need them. There is simply no time to waste.
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition: Kenny Graham, Falkland House School; Lynn Bell, LOVE Learning; Stephen McGhee, Spark of Genius; Niall Kelly, Young Foundations
BECAUSE the new regular E10 petrol will damage the engines of my mower, strimmer and pressure washer, I have had to buy premium E5 petrol for these machines. The extra cost for just five litres is 90p.
Of course, the E10 petrol with 10% bio-ethanol will not do any good, because the Chinese, the Indians and others are rapidly increasing the amounts of coal and oil they burn.
This is simply another small victory for the interfering busybodies of the green movement over people who actually do stuff and get their hands dirty.
Otto Inglis
Crossgates, Fife
IT’S all an absolute con trick. You are distilling potential edible food, at a very expensive distillation manufacturing costs per litre vs fossil fuels.
It’s also highly toxic – you can tell as petrol is classified as an aromatic-based solvent. It doesn’t dissolve nitrile seals, this stuff, even diluted with petroleum is HIGHLY CORROSIVE, it melts the stuff!
My classic bikes’ fuel systems will just melt with this garbage in their fuel tanks!
Sandy Allan
via thenational.scot
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