Modern Britain still functions according to institutions of Middle Ages

VERY soon the furore caused by the release of the Paradise Papers will subside and sink into history without trace, just as did the Panama Files, and nothing will change. All that has happened is that the lid has been lifted from a box of secrets; it will soon be closed again and the majority of its contents will remain hidden.

How naive we are, collectively. Nobody questions why none of the multitude of our Scottish islands is a tax-haven yet some off the coast of mainland England are. Nobody raises an eyebrow at the fact that the City of London, the commercial square mile, is autonomous and outwith the control of the UK Parliament yet it has a permanent representative, the Remembrancer, stationed by the Speaker’s Chair in the Commons simply to ensure that the interests of the City are protected. The City of London is the spider at the centre of the global web of tax-avoidance and evasion.

We are conditioned to believe that we live in a golden era of opportunity, fairness and equality guaranteed by our democratic process when, in reality, society is structured exactly as it was in the Middle Ages and is just as unfair as it was then. The elite have always had ways to protect their status and wealth.

Tax havens are nothing new. What happens is not accidental, it’s not exploiting loopholes, it is deliberate systematic theft from the public purse and it is achieved with the connivance of individuals who should be preventing abuse rather than facilitating it.

It is symptomatic of the attitude of the media that they have highlighted the Mrs Brown’s Boys individuals who have belatedly jumped on the bandwagon while ignoring those further up the social ladder (“Mrs Brown stars should stop using NHS ‘they do not pay for’, says MSP”, The Herald, November 10). We are still peasants and serfs – we just don’t have the wit to appreciate it.

David J Crawford, 85 Whittingehame Court, 1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.

WRAPPED in humour, a serious question about how to encourage investment in Scotland is asked by Ian Hamilton of North Connel (Letters, November 10). Provocative as usual.

Stealing the wealth of people in the UK takes us only so far in global finance. We need billions of pounds of foreign investment and a guarantee of future income or politicians in Scotland, indeed the UK, can clear their desks.

This really needs an international rule change requiring co-ordinated political effort.

Spending public money on priorities only? A few years ago Scottish economist John Kay wrote about a conference in Denmark that discussed the best model of governance. Foreign policy experts thought America was top nation. But, from an economic perspective, perhaps it was Denmark; despite having lost an empire, Denmark, he wrote, is small, socially cohesive, and very rich. Its defence costs are low, copying Switzerland, going on the basis that “if you don’t bother us, we won’t bother you”. In fact, one of the leading parties in Denmark thought the state should go further: it proposed replacing Denmark’s defence forces with a recorded announcement in Russian saying “we surrender”.

Ian Jenkins,

7 Spruce Avenue, Hamilton.