Trade deficit not aggravated by uncontrolled UK immigration

JIM ROBERTSON (Letters,

January 11) asserts “unrestricted immigration … would just accelerate the trade deficit, and therefore the country’s debt”. As scientists know, correlation is not cause. Sadly, it is this kind of economic reasoning that leads to policies that future generations then have to put right. They never do, of course, as they find new ways of getting it wrong, thanks to constantly reinvented “bite-size” economics and politics, which are all too often aided by headlines or titles that have the appearance of truth but are nothing of the sort.

Mr Robertson’s statement is as flawed as its negative opposite would be: “Restricted migration does not accelerate the trade deficit and therefore the country’s debt does not increase”. In essence, Mr Robertson preaches people are economic units (buy one get one free?), but he would do well to consider people for what they first and foremost are – amazingly, people. There are other flaws in

Jim Robertson’s economic creed: new-born babies are unproductive; and, for decades, they remain net takers – far more than an unqualified newly arrived adult EU immigrant. Should British people therefore stop having British babies to decelerate, or reverse, a trade deficit and reduce, or remove, a country’s debt?

He also advocates taking on only qualified migrants in accordance with economic needs, which may vary in time. But can EU immigrants not acquire skills in their adopted country and, with time, pay back more than what they initially “took out” – like, eventually, new-born babies? Given Mr Robertson’s reasoning methodology, it is a matter of time before he tells us some people are hard-wired, or DNA’d, to be productive. However, popular economics is just as bad as popular science and are both the equivalent of witchcraft and voodoo dressed up for “modern” immediate consumption.

P Fabien,

41 Kingsborough Gardens, Glasgow.

WE currently pay almost

£15 billion annual interest on our national debt.

Our total national debt is about to break through the £2 trillion mark. Our Westminster bubble system claims the name Government, but such an economic performance is not good governance.

To put it into perspective: North Sea oil revenues to the Exchequer from corporation tax peaked at just over £6 billion in 2011 and are declining. That gives you a good comparison of how dreadful the level of national debt interest really is: nearly three time the huge North Sea oil tax revenue to government at its peak.

As for HM Revenue and

Customs, overall, it estimates about £34bn in taxes goes uncollected each year. Not all of it is because of tax evasion and tax avoidance, but a large part is. The Paradise Papers revealed royalty, celebrities, the rich and global companies are all cheating by using deliberately vague tax laws allowing them to do so – part of the attraction of the Tory Party in years gone by but now being exploited to such an extent it is like a cancer spreading through the national body.

Traditionally, our Westminster governments magic any imbalance away by using a device called quantitative easing, a public relations term used to avoid telling the truth that the Government is devaluing (stealing) ordinary people’s money. But tax avoidance and tax evasion have grown so much they are adversely affecting our balance of payments to the extent it has tipped into a negatively critical rating.

Switching on the news these days is like watching the Westminster elected dictatorship staggering blindly towards national economic suicide.

The United Kingdom does not have a written constitution and as such there is no clearly defined set of rules that govern the relationships of the different branches of the government, executive, parliament, the monarchy and the judiciary.

The uniquely British system of government does not contain within itself a system of institutionalised checks and balances as demonstrated and common in most modern liberal democracies.

The Westminster Parliament can make or unmake any law it wishes; there are no rival UK legislatures that can challenge its authority. It’s all about the majority party of the House of Commons. The absolute power of the Commons means the leader of the largest party within that chamber, the Prime Minister, and his or her appointed government can propose and implement any legislation that can gain a majority in the Commons.

It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories.

This is not democracy (that is, the practice or principles of social equality). The Government of the United Kingdom is an elected dictatorship.

Ernie Hasler,

1 Church Place,

Old Kilpatrick. I WAS disappointed the media bought into the press release line pushed by the Tories in its coverage of the make-up of the new Cabinet. Theresa May, who committed herself to fight against inequalities when she entered No 10, has picked a Cabinet filled with more toffs than when she became Prime Minister (“May’s focus on diversity after ‘shambolic’ reshuffle jibe”, The Herald,

January 10).

As her reshuffle concluded, analysis showed she had failed to boost the diversity of her top team with 34 per cent of senior ministers privately educated, compared with 30 per cent in her 2016 Cabinet. Cabinet ministers were more than five times more likely to have gone to a fee-paying school than the general population.

Nearly half (48 per cent) of the Cabinet went to Oxbridge, a higher proportion than in 2016 (44 per cent). And less than half (41 per cent) of Mrs May’s new team went to a comprehensive state school, compared with 44 per cent when she became Prime Minister.

Brian McKenna,

Overtoun Avenue,

Dumbarton.

THE Tory reshuffle may well include more women and ethnic minorities, but there are no disabled people around the Cabinet table. There are 13 million of us. We may be too ill to work but some us can still speak and our Government should have space for some of us. The Tories renaming our sickness benefit Universal Credit and leaving us with no money for five weeks is a kick in the teeth. That is a reason we should be around the table.

Let the Tories look us in the eye and tell us we don’t count.

Colin M Campbell,

Bruach Gorm,

Port Charlotte,

Islay.