WHY do Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar continue to attack the Scottish NHS at FMQs? (FMQs: Douglas Ross accuses FM of trying to score ‘political points”, The National, Oct 7). Their attacks are an insult to the intelligence of the people of Scotland.
Most Scots probably have much more experience than Messrs Ross and Sarwar do of having to increase spending in one area and reduce in another while paying for everything from a fixed income and a limited overdraft, in pretty much the same way as the Scottish Government handles devolved matters. Both enjoy large salaries with expense accounts but have no experience in government.
In fact, Scotland is in a worse position than the average Scot as its total income is based on the miserly spending of the UK Government on the same services in England, not the amount that Scotland actually earns.
There is no doubt that NHS services all over the UK are failing to meet targets set long ago in better times. Hopefully they will meet these targets again in future.
As spending in the three other countries is based on spending in England, it is possible to make comparisons where statistics are available and in most areas NHS Scotland returns the highest level of performance. This is not to say that this is an acceptable level of long-term performance.
The almost weekly snapshots from Anas Sarwar of the worst possible cases of the NHS failing individuals without an overall picture of the situation gain some sympathy for the sufferers but why does he continually refuse to ask for more power, particularly financial, to be devolved to Scotland? The incessant demands by Douglas Ross for an enormous increase in funding for NHS Scotland are futile due to the Scottish Government’s fixed budget.
Why did he champion a substantial reduction in income tax for high earners that would have resulted in cuts to services that would have affected NHS Scotland?
The leaders of the opposition parties have spent so long relying on research and scripts from their party headquarters that they have begun to believe what they read.
They are in a higher earning bracket than most of us, insulated from the chill of the energy crisis, and are becoming increasingly out of touch with the well-educated and informed people of Scotland.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
ON a daily basis we hear and read criticism of our health service in Scotland with blame invariably laid on the Scottish Government. We seem to have a shortage of staff affecting all sorts of public services including health and care.
Now we have banks and supermarkets exerting pressure toward a DIY service to the point that wandering around filling a basket or trolley and laying goods on a conveyor then packing purchases and carrying them off is not enough.
Customers doing their own checkout really takes the biscuit and is a grossly inefficient and waste of their time. Who wants to learn how to use and get tied in knots with another electronic gadget when an expert can wheech your purchases through in no time?
The point is, shortage of staff is evident all around and throughout all kinds of industries, businesses and services, yet the reasons given by the media evades the clear cause – Brexit. Wilfully sending home the thousands of willing and needed staff from abroad is a distinct consequence of the drain on Britain by Brexit while the facts are deliberately avoided by UK Government and its compliant media as key services struggle and crumble.
To crown it all the recent past prime minister Boris Johnson seemed to relish in his final days by telling us that unemployment was at its lowest since goodness knows when, perhaps since he last saw the inside of a barber’s shop and took up his position behind the bar in Number 10 serving up Brexit.
Come on Scotland, we can do better and must do ASAP.
Tom Gray
Braco
YOU reported (Oct 8) that the SNP expect to publish this week a white paper on Scotland’s economy and currency after independence. Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the official policy of the SNP is to use sterling as Scotland’s currency after independence. I would like someone to explain how we could possibly call ourselves independent if we were reliant (i.e. dependent!) on the central bank of another country to set our monetary policy, including interest rates.
Such a fudged halfway house would emphatically not be independence, and would deny Scotland the ability to make its own decisions on monetary issues in the interest of Scotland and Scots. Instead we would have to accept decisions made in the interest of another country.
Peter Swain
Dunbar
“WHY are you so desperate to keep Scotland?” – that is the question I would like our politicians to be asking or for the same question to be put to a Tory MP by an interviewer. Unionists say we are “better together”. I would like to hear them explain why? What do we gain by being part of the Union? In the early days of the Empire we benefited financially but the Empire is gone and is nothing to be proud of, the very opposite in fact.
“We couldn’t survive financially on our own” is one of the tales they tell, but what is that to them? Do they have such great empathy with us that they don’t want to see us suffer without their wisdom and financial assistance?
No! We know the answer – that they are after our resources. It is becoming more and more clear when Liz Truss speaks of opening more oilfields and increasing wind and wave power. Of course they don’t mention that all of this will come from Scotland. The Tories certainly need our resources to pull them out of the mire caused by Brexit.
Eric Morris
Crail
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