Dodging blame

SNP ministers are becoming ever more creative in coming up with responses to each set of disappointing performance figures, or the latest unfolding crisis in their respective remits. News that the Accounts Commission predicts that at the current rate some of our councils could run out of money saw finance secretary Derek Mackay duck the impact of the SNP’S tenyear onslaught against local authority budgets, and instead try to lay the blame with Westminster, even though in recent years it has only been funding from the rest of the UK that has enabled Scotland to continue spending so much more per person than in the rest of the UK.

Meanwhile, justice secretary Michael Matheson is happy to imply that the daily unfolding dramas at the top of Police Scotland are simply down to the Scottish Police Authority, and refutes any suggestion that his party’s mismanaged restructuring of our police services could have had any part to play. Now health secretary Shona Robison, responding to yet more evidence on the groundofmissedcriticalwaiting time targets, boldly asserts that the next set of figures will be much better (“1 in 5 patients miss NHS waiting time targets for treatment after referral”, 29 November). Given we are now suffering the worst performance for six years in people starting treatment within the 18-week target period, many will be concerned the health secretary is simply whistling in the dark.

KEITH HOWELL

White Moss

West Linton, Peeblesshire