Times letters: Nicola Sturgeon sealed the fate of her successor

Sir, If the Scottish National Party elects John Swinney and, as hints indicate, again enters the “fantastical world view” of the Greens, as your leading article “Humza the Brief” (Apr 30) accurately describes it, there will be a total collapse of electoral support. People in Scotland are “scunnered” (utterly fed up). They have had enough of the fixation on pronouns instead of learning in schools; of pretending men are women; of the absurdity of believing that a Highlander burning wood in a stove can save the planet while in China, India and elsewhere 1,400 coal-fired power stations are at full blast.

Scotland needs a government anchored in reality, one that is able to reverse the decline in education, not talking of but actually reforming the NHS, building homes and stimulating, not throttling, small businesses. We need a leader to wipe clean the Sturgeon slate, someone intellectually equipped for the job, with a mind that can encompass other opinions, who is authentic and respected. I have just described Kate Forbes.
Jim Sillars
Former MP and deputy leader of the SNP; Edinburgh

Sir, I cannot help feeling as one of those behind the creation of devolution to Scotland that none of us foresaw the creation of a government north of the border whose objective was complete independence. Most of us at the start saw the two governments (the UK and Scotland) working together to provide better government for our people, instead of which we have had one that blamed everything on a lack of funds from Westminster. Humza Yousaf’s main fault was admitting the Greens into his government. John Swinney has the experience to get us out of this mess.
Lord Steel of Aikwood
First presiding officer of the Scottish parliament; Selkirk, Scottish Borders

Sir, Your leading article suggests that the SNP government has discredited devolution. Arguably the greater discredit is in the path Scotland has travelled away from the original principles of the Consultative Steering Group: openness, accessibility, equal opportunities and power-sharing, all of which were supposed to result in a form of “new politics” in 1999. After 25 years of devolution, Scottish politics continues to see parliamentary majorities as the main prize and is as hostile in its questioning, as polarised in its views and as zero sum in its outlook as Westminster, the very institution held up as an example to avoid.
Professor Ailsa Henderson
University of Edinburgh

Sir, Alex Massie (“A slapstick end for accidental leader who was doomed to fail”, Apr 30) is right that, while there are many reasons why Humza Yousaf had to resign, particularly an eye-watering lack of political nous, the principal reason was Nicola Sturgeon (supported by the unworldly Greens) setting unfeasible climate change targets. Under the nationalists the targets have not been met in eight of the previous 12 years. Sturgeon, who long term perhaps had her eye on a UN environmental job, was desperate to appear righteous and ethical yet was setting up her successor to fail. Hence Yousaf was forced to face reality and reset climate targets, to his personal detriment. Sturgeon’s vanity and the SNP’s obsession with playing puerile political games lie at the centre of Yousaf’s downfall.
Martin Redfern
Melrose, Roxburghshire

Boost for business

Sir, Addressing two domestic issues would improve the health and wealth of our country: first, the competitive disadvantage of the retail business rates levied on traditional community-based employers compared with giant online retailers, who in effect are trashing the nation’s roads rent and rates-free. The damage to local communities that this disadvantage is causing is clear nationwide. Moreover, many online retailers pay negligible tax on their vast profits due to being “based” abroad. The solution is a higher rate of VAT for goods sold online and reduced rates taxation for traditional retail. This would immediately revive local communities, increase employment and provide greater tax revenue for the UK.

Second, the competitive disadvantage of the abolition of tax-free shopping for overseas tourists that came in with Brexit on January 30, 2020, and has been dubbed the “tourism tax”. The perk allowed tourists from outside the EU to claim back VAT on goods bought in the UK, making them 20 per cent cheaper. The change has repeatedly proven to have resulted in billions of pounds of foreign money that would have been destined for the pockets of British taxpayers being diverted to mainland Europe, where the same goods are free of sales tax and 20 per cent cheaper. France is the main beneficiary of this. The British government is supposedly “choosing” to try to directly tax money that we now never see. It would be far better to encourage the money to arrive into the UK and then tax it indirectly. The immediate result of abolishing this tourist tax would be billions of pounds pouring into the economy from abroad and greater tax revenue for the government.
Charlie Pragnell
Stratford upon Avon

MoD’s mute policy in the Troubles

Sir, I read with interest Sean O’Neill’s Thunderer (Apr 29) on the Ministry of Defence’s frequently used policy of NCND (“neither confirm nor deny”). There are other official applications of this policy that are often overlooked but similarly cause significant concern. For example, after the abduction, murder and secret burial of Captain Robert Nairac by the Provisional IRA in 1977, some politicians, commentators and documentary makers linked his name to a series of atrocities and murders in Ireland. When approached for comment the MoD, rather than stating categorically that Nairac was not in Ireland at the time (which he was not on the dates of four of the events and was deployed elsewhere on the date of the fifth), employed its standard NCND response.

This fundamentally lazy and evasive response has meant that these spurious allegations have gone largely unchallenged for countless years, gaining momentum from endless repetition and causing heartache to his surviving family. It took the coroner of the Kingsmill inquest when recording his verdict earlier this month to finally destroy the myth that Nairac was present and involved in that particular atrocity.
Geoffrey Knupfer
Former head of operations, Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains; Worsley, Greater Manchester

Migrants in Ireland

Sir, Your editorial (“The Porous Border”, Apr 29) explains that the UK and Ireland can no longer return irregular migrants to France and the UK respectively, and concludes that Europe’s immigration system is broken. How did it break? Before the unnecessary decision to exit the Dublin III regulations on asylum management in parallel with leaving the EU, both transfers would have been legitimate and legally enforceable. Although such third-country returns were comparatively rare, is it possible that the system served as a form of deterrent?
Richard Urmston
Croydon

Welfare reforms

Sir, Further to your report “Depressed and anxious face losing their benefit” (Apr 29), what particularly concerns SANE about the new government proposals for benefits reform is that mental health problems are often invisible and fluctuate from month to month or day to day, and that assessments for benefits are all too often based on “snapshot” judgments that do not take account of how hidden and disabling mental illness can be.

While there is such an acute shortage of mental health professionals — doctors, nurses and counsellors — we are worried that ill-informed judgments could force people to work when they might be at risk of relapse, which could worsen their depression, anxiety or other debilitating conditions.
Marjorie Wallace
Chief executive, SANE

Paying school fees

Sir, Falling back on grandparents is nothing new (“Grandparents raid savings to beat tax on school fees”, Apr 29; letter, Apr 30), nor is the two-way traffic between the state and private sectors. A teacher at my daughter’s private school once told me it was “full of girls failed by the state sector”. Their parents welcomed the small classes and individual attention but struggled to pay the school fees, often calling on the child’s grandparents to bail them out. The upside was a sense of kindred spirits, battling against the odds.
Cathy Shelbourne
Ipswich, Suffolk

All things trite or beautiful?

Sir, Lord Lisvane is not alone in his wish to consign All Things Bright and Beautiful to the bin (letter and news, Apr 30). The sad fact is that with the demise of regular churchgoing and the sort of assembly in school when a hymn used to be sung daily, the repertoire of familiar hymns has drastically diminished. It is not only weddings where this is evident: funerals are faring no better in my experience. When playing for either of these I seldom have direct contact with wedding couples or with bereaved families. Regrettably, the clergy are often as unaware and lacking in imagination as the families for whom they are acting.
Roger Judd
Former organist, St George’s Chapel Windsor; Clehonger, Herefordshire

Sir, Lord Lisvane may not like All Things Bright and Beautiful but it is one of the few hymns that many people know. Even then, ministers can find themselves singing a solo in front of a silent, non-singing congregation. I do wonder if the default for weddings and funerals where hymns are sung should be a karaoke-style backing track so that the congregation can sing along.
The Rev Peter Crumpler
St Albans

Sir, For me, the reason All Things Bright and Beautiful remains such a popular hymn is because it sums up everything good about my childhood, especially the first two lines. We sung it regularly right through my school years, it was sung at my wedding and I intend it to be sung at my funeral. Furthermore, I have requested those first two lines be engraved on my headstone, should I be given one.
Wendy Farrington
Kendal, Cumbria

Safer driving idea

Sir, Sathnam Sanghera (Notebook, Apr 29) is right about the seeming inverse correlation between the development of driving innovations and safe driving. Sitting on your horn in your Indian car, bike or tuk-tuk, you can overtake, undertake, sit right behind the vehicle in front before cutting in, cutting out and definitely cutting up. And often with a mobile phone in hand and/or without a seatbelt. Despite all that, India’s road accident death rate is similar to that of the US. Also, surprisingly for westerners, you see no road rage. Hence, rather than simply entrusting our wellbeing in vehicles to the latest innovations, we should emulate the focus, concentration and composure of these Indian drivers, if not their driving habits.
Andrew Leslau
Henley on Thames, Oxon

Dessert of despair

Sir, Mark White’s letter (“Whined and dined”, Apr 29) reminds me of an occasion when I was finance director of a group that was planning to expand into restaurants, including buying one in Dublin. I happened to be in the city with some friends for a weekend and suggested we try the said restaurant for lunch. Having ordered Crêpes Suzette for dessert we waited a long time, until eventually the waitress came over and asked: “Would you like to try something else? I don’t think the chef can make them — he’s tried four times so far.”
John Moulton
Cheddar, Somerset