Fire safety visits are free
I write with reference to the article about the fire in Well Street, Paisley (Express, August 23).
It was good to see that everyone got out in time.
I understand that they may have lost everything but I am sure there will be charities out there that could help.
I would urge anyone to have a home safety visit by the Scottish Fire and Rescue service.
If required, they will fit smoke alarms in your home.
So give them a call – your local community fire station will help you.
Kenneth McMaster Paisley
Itdoesn’taddup
It will come as no surprise that Labour MSP Mary Fee wholeheartedly supports the false economics of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures.
These figures appear every year like some doom-laden groundhog day trying to make it seem that Scotland is an economic basket case.
Yet even a cursory glance at the figures reveal how laughably inaccurate they are.
For instance, according to
GERS, Scotland spends more of its resources on defence than any country in the world.
Yes – even Russia, China and the USA spend a lower percentage of their GDP on defence than Scotland – which is strange, considering we don’t have any naval ships based in Scotland and our historic regiments were all amalgamated - yet the producers of GERS tell us this.
Of course oil revenue - 96 per cent of all UK oil fields are in Scotland - is not included, as the Treasury say it is too difficult to assess in which geographic area they are located.
However, the Treasury has no problems assigning Scotland a share of the debt for England’s infrastructure such as the HS2 or upgrades to London’s underground.
GERS was conceived as a political and propaganda tool – and it bears no true reflection on the state of the Scottish economy.
And even if it did, you would have to ask how after over 300 years in a union with England that Scotland’s economy is doing so poorly?
The GERS report even states it is about the current constitutional arrangements and does not reflect what would happen under independence.
GERS is a propaganda tool devised by Tories and supported by Labour politicians.
I’m not surprised that Mary
Fee supports it so much – after all, when she was a councillor in Renfrewshire she happily voted for a Tory budget for the council which would have slashed local services.
Councillor
Kenny MacLaren Paisley
GERS is a propaganda tool devised by Tories and supported by Labour politicians