WE HAVE all come to rely on the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie, to come up with expensive ideas for the unworkable. His latest foray into this world is to stop Scots getting grants for solar panels unless they are putting in very expensive and quite possibly ineffi-cient new heating systems. The grant will be pathetically low but the heating system costs will probably be astronomically high. Mr Harvie seems to spend a lot of time planning how he can save the world by making the lives of Scots very miserable indeed. Is there a Nobel Prize or a job at the United Nations for this? GERALD EDWARDS, Glasgow.
There is something unedifying about Humza Yousaf proclaiming that he is prepared to “p*** off some people” by making choices on big issues (Scotsman, 16 August). He may be trying to exude bravado and manifest a steely confidence which isn’t there but at the end of the day it may not matter. He increasingly seems to be First Minister in name only with de facto FM, Patrick Harvie, calling the shots. Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirling.
For someone with no public office and no mandate, Alex Salmond talks up himself and his Alba party as if they were of great moment. Salmond’s new show Scotland Speaks, available on social media platforms, is typical of his chutzpah. He doesn’t represent “Scotland” in any measurable sense. His party has failed to win so much as a local council seat, and its two MPs were elected as SNP MPs and then defected to Alba. Now we are told that Salmond is to address “the Centre for UN Studies on “the Road to Scottish Independence” (what else?). Doesn’t that sound impressive? But this centre isn’t a part of the United Nations. It is a research centre at the “independent” (aka private) University of Buckingham, not the kind of institution the SNP would wish to be associated with. Full marks to Alba for its propaganda effort, elevating Salmond to the status of a national figure (which, of course, he used to be, but is no more). But the SNP has rebuffed its attempts to create a united separatist front for forthcoming elections, no doubt in the hope that the renegade MPs Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey can have their seats saved through a Pact. I think we can be confident that all the talking up will count for nought, and that after the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, followed by a general election, Alba will emerge without a parliamentary representative. How sad. What a shame. Never mind. Jill Stephenson Edinburgh.
IT’S the annual spin day when the GERS figures are published. Although these figures are produced by civil servants in the Scottish Government, the separatists who live among us, including many SNP and Green politicians, would like to make us believe that the figures are a figment of Westminster’s imagination. They annually reject the fact that by being in the United Kingdom, Scotland benefits to the tune of £ 1,521 per person over our fellow UK citizens. Imagine what we could do with that money if the SNP and the Greens had not chosen to squander it on the failed and costly deposit return scheme, the black financial hole that is two ferries, the costly census debacle to name but a few. GERS shows the income against expenditure of Scotland and for those in any doubt as to why they never support ripping us out of the United Kingdom, this is the one fact you need to grasp. Scotland’s tax revenue was £19.1 billion less than its expenditure last year. To put it into perspective, the health and social care budget set for this financial year is £ 19.2bn. Until the SNP can tell us how it would make up that shortfall without borrowing at horrendous rates, it can’t expect us to take it seriously. We are not too wee, too poor or too stupid. We are just better together. Jane Lax.
THE Scottish Green Party’s influence on decision-making in the Scottish political scene has become somewhat farcical. Quite simply this is because not one of their MSPs is in any way truly representative of the electorate. Their style in administration can only be described as maverick and therefore is only acceptable to a small minority of people. By means of the Additional Mem-ber System, in the Glasgow North constituency, for example, the Labour Party candidate got 11,537 votes at the last Scottish parliamentary election, while Patrick Harvie got only 3,251 votes (9 per cent) but became an MSP for the Greens. Similarly in the Edinburgh Northern/ Leith constituency, the Labour Party candidate got 10,874 votes in this same election, while Lorna Slater got only 6,116 votes but also became a Greens MSP. Both Harvie and Slater became MSPs because of the electoral system, not because they were selected by the people. And in their case, this is simply not acceptable because of the effects of their extreme approach to so many aspects of people’s lives – and their livelihoods. The only consolation will be that once the SNP have been drummed out of government, the Greens must surely disappear into oblivion. ROBERT I. G. SCOTT, Ceres, Fife.