IT is very disappointing to read that Tom Arthur MSP, who is our government’s public finance minister, has indicated that there will be no new system of council tax until after the 2026 election.

This was revealed in The Herald on March 28.

The SNP government rightly promotes the many steps which it has taken to mitigate the worst and cruellest effects of Westminster policies on our most disadvantaged. As so many more of us are heading for very challenging times paying for higher energy charges, food price inflation and mortgage interest hikes, coupled with the Brexit factor, the time is long past for mitigation. Instead the Scottish Government must lead our nation’s transformation.

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There is no luxury of time to address the lack of public funds through Citizens Assemblies and consultations with “stakeholders” who in former times were interest groups who did all in their power to protect their members’ interests, often to the detriment of wider society reforms In 2016 the Scottish National Party conference supported by acclaim a policy of using land as Scotland’s principal source of public funding.

Since then I have attended more than 60 SNP and Yes meetings around our country where the policy is eagerly embraced.

I do wonder who is advising our government when our party is so convinced about the merit of the policy.

A simple model of Annual Ground Rent can be introduced now even under the current devolution settlement without the consent of the UK Government or HMRC, which can replace all existing Scottish and local taxes and reduce the rate of income tax on earned income to zero. Apart from private or public-sector property owners who fail to steward what they own, everyone else will be better off.

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All the elements to introduce it are in place. The information is already in the public domain. A straightforward bill could be drafted very quickly. All Revenue Scotland’s website needs is an online registration form for property owners to complete.

Built into the model is a Universal Citizens Income of at least £200 per week for every child and adult. That moves our nation from mitigating hardship to transforming lives.

If we are really serious about ending poverty we must stop the excuse of the constraints of devolution.

I believe passionately in independence for Scotland, but the way to secure it is to take control of our public funding now under existing powers so that those who have doubts about our ability to financially support all our people will have their eyes opened and their pockets filled.

Graeme McCormick
Arden

SADLY it seems that false information does not just come from Russia, Boris or Biden – it also abounds in the guff talked about nuclear weapons, Nato and an independent Scotland.

The current UK nuclear capability is but a spit in the ocean compared to the US/Russian capability and if it ever came to an all-out nuclear war we are all toast when the red button is pressed by either side, a decision unlikely to be undertaken by Nato as it has no nuclear weapons of its own, Trident or not.

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On independence the Scottish Government request’s not to have any foreign nuclear weapons based on its soil or in its territorial waters will mean the end of Coulport and Faslane as a nuclear submarine “bomber” base, Nato will not object as the US military have long been trying to get UK Governments to dump their nuclear aspirations and fund conventional forces instead. The US Navy/Lockheed-Martin were forced to sell Trident 3 launch tubes to the UK in a deal between Bush and Blair via a presidential decree. Yes, folks, another benefit from Blair supporting Bush’s war on “Eeerak’s weapons of mass destruction”, some unintended irony there.

I am presuming we Scots will not be seeking a “share” of what will become Royal Navy England’s nuclear deterrent as Nato and the US have a long-standing policy of not basing non-national nuclear weapons in member states that are opposed to nuclear weapons.

Since 2000 the US nuclear storage and launch facilities in north-western Europe have all been shut down, emptied and mothballed for this reason and “little” Norway never had any based there at all.

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So the best way to stop being a “target” for Russian/North Korean or Chinese nuclear warheads is simply to become independent and leave England to sort out what to do with the already outdated nuclear weapon technology (even when the “new” Trident goes into service – if ever) they have invested in.

Nato membership is not the issue here, it is the insidious ill-informed or deliberate anti-Nato propaganda from a small number of voices, often the same ones who are against EU membership for Scotland – funny that or what?

Peter Thomson
Kirkcudbright

NICOLA, please! You say our biggest threat is not seizing independence ... I totally agree, as do millions of people in this dear land called Scotland.

We wish to seize, or rather take back what is ours. “Seize” to me sounds like we are grabbing something that does not belong to us.

In 2013 Alex Salmond read a poem I wrote called “the nonsense ends “, meaning being governed by England had to end. We got close from a very low percentage. I, like many, were in tears. The Vow maybe turned things around.

Well now Nicola, we shall start from a much higher percentage, goodness knows how many mandates and a youth that is desperate to be this country’s future. I and many want our independence back ... don’t say in a few years, start now.

George Robertson
Edinburgh