Sturgeon will continue to ignore domestic remit regardless of polls outcome

Regardless of who now resides in Downing Street, we, of course, still have an SNP minority government at Holyrood.

Will the election result impact on the behaviour of Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of the SNP establishment in Edinburgh?

Over the past few days, drowned out by election noise, we’ve learned that one in four GP practices in Scotland has a vacancy, about failings in child mental health welfare and that nurse and midwifery vacancies are at a record high. The SNP has been in charge of the NHS for a decade.

We’re told Ms Sturgeon should mount an investigation into that against election rules the Scottish Government issued a press release regarding Glasgow regeneration funding two days before the local elections. Don’t hold your breath on that one.

Plus a broad range of journalists from print, conventional and social media are concerned the SNP Government is responding inadequately to Freedom of Information requests.

Journalists cite lack of transparency and suggest breaches of statutory duty by the SNP. The nationalists claim they’re busy and the requests are complex – so what?

It is beyond doubt, regardless of any SNP Westminster seat losses and her own declining popularity, Ms Sturgeon will continue largely to ignore her entirely domestic remit and – seemingly – be careless with democracy, preferring instead to obsess relentlessly about her teenage dream of independence.

MARTIN REDFERN Merchiston Gardens, Edinburgh

So what now for the SNP? It appears likely they will claim victory in scotland on the basis of the number of seats won in the general election whilst ignoring the clear majority who have used their votes to support anyone but the SNP.

Will Nicola Sturgeon continue listening only to those who agree with her, or will she decide at last to assume the full responsibilities of being First Minister and truly try to represent all of us?

KEITH HOWELL West Linton, Peeblesshire

I’m a council house, left-wing “baby-boomer” for whom the only alternative to the Tories in my area was voting Lib Dem, even though I saved an average of £10k each year due to Thatcher’s tax policy, made a tidy sum on buying, then selling, my mother’s council house (despite disagreeing with the policy) and, if I hadn’t got divorced, I could have retired five years ago.

I sympathise with the Millennials’ view that my generation “ate all the pies”. Those of them, at any rate, who work hard, save and pay into a pension, whose parents can’t help with a mortgage deposit and who don’t blow their money on loans for weddings, booze, takeaways, Brazilian waxes and exotic bets at Willie Hill’s.

These days the term “money tree” is used by the Tories to denigrate opposition policies which propose more spending and debt, lightly drizzled with a pound here and there on income tax or virtue signalling and threats to ban Trident or soak the rich.

The way things are going, the deficit and debt will be so astronomic I won’t get a state pension when I am in my 80s, and will undoubtedly have to pay for home or residential care, because Scotland will have to get real, too.

So while the SNP, Labour and Lib Dems typecast “dementia tax” to join the rape clause and bedroom tax as the latest example of “Toarrie” cruelty, I saw the logic of it and wanted to know more.

Finally Theresa May got it right last week when she explained my last £100k would be ring-fenced and there would be a “cap” on what I pay.

If it means I get the care I need, my kids inherit a good sum, and someone is helped who, through no fault of their own, can’t afford it, I would see it as my duty as a citizen to comply.

It is to the shame of all other parties that not only do they trivialise an issue which, if not dealt with soon, is going to haunt this country and its people for years to come, they refuse to acknowledge the extent of the problem, or suggest alternatives. Voting Tory this time therefore suits me in two ways. If they win it will get this issue addressed and the SNP will lose their seat in West Aberdeenshire.

ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven