Letters Special:
IT was good to hear a breakout of common sense in Len McCluskey ‘s comments about expecting Ed Miliband to work with the SNP (“Jacket is off as PM fights to keep grip on power”, The Herald, April 28). If the Labour Party find themselves likely to be a minority government then they should work with another progressive party who have some policies in common. The hyperbole that we’ve heard about the SNP from all the Westminster parties does no-one any credit. It also underestimates the impact on voters who get annoyed at the constant mention of the SNP as though they had no right to participate in elections.
It does strike me that some people continue to hang on to the idea that the only progressive party in Scotland is the Labour Party despite their rightward shift on some policies. Part of the many political changes that have taken place in Scotland is the movement among the SNP and smaller parties like the Scottish Green Party and the Scottish Socialist Party to positive, people-centred politics with an emphasis on public services, renewable energy and the removal of Trident.
One of the most refreshing aspects of the referendum campaign was the work of Women for Independence who were successful in mobilising women of all ages and class backgrounds into political activity. We must earnestly hope that the momentum is maintained and that the political enthusiasm displayed last year is maintained for the Westminster elections.
Unlike David Cameron, who seems to view the SNP campaigning as some kind of sinister plot, I believe the opposite to be true. The more that political parties, young people and women participate in politics the more democratic and accountable our political life becomes.
I would also urge candidates of all parties to remember that voters want to hear positive political vision. Not Pollyanna politics, but the dreams of a better world. Maggie Chetty, 36 Woodend Drive, Glasgow.
RECENTLY Bill Brown advocated a form of proportional representation to mitigate the current SNP surge (Letters, April 18). Yet proportional representation, or one form of it – but it was the principle that the campaign was fought on – was rejected decisively by the nation in a referendum in 2011. This week (Letters, April 28) he argued for the scrapping of the Holyrood Parliament, yet this was supported overwhelmingly by the Scottish people in 1997. It would seem that Mr Brown is not prepared to accept the results of referenda if he does not like the outcome.
If he is serious about constitutional reform, which I doubt, he may like to consider the following proposal. The House of Lords is a constitutional anomaly and should be abolished; its revising function can be taken on by a strengthened committee system. The vacant accommodation can then be used for an English Parliament, which would lance the English Votes for English Laws (Evel) boil. Like its counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it should be elected by proportional representation. Larry Cheyne, 4 Ochil Road, Bishopbriggs.
IAIN Walker (Letters, April 29) states that Prestwick Airport is a “basket case and “ruined beyond repair” (Letters, April 29). He tries to link this to nationalisation and that of the Scottish Government’s investment in saving the airport and the associated local jobs that are sustained by the airport and its associated industries. What he remarkably fails to highlight is that Prestwick’s demise has been at the hands of private companies and also that the Scottish Government’s intention is not only to save a national asset but to build it back up to profitability and sell it back the private sector.
That to me is “progressive” and “responsible”. Allan Mackintosh, 20 Hunter Crescent, Troon.
AS he lives in Southall, Middlesex, Michael Rossi (Letters, April 29) may be excused in his misapprehension that SNP politicians are somehow selfdenying ascetics who reject the luxury of office – he has presumably missed that Nicola Sturgeon is the UK’s highest-paid politician, having a higher salary than that of David Cameron.
However, his point that ministerial responsibility is a distraction from the “real job” of MPs does take us to the heart of the choice before Scottish voters.
Ms Sturgeon has made it clear that her party will under no circumstances put the Tories in power; and. at the same time Ed Miliband has promised that he will make no deal with the SNP. This means that the SNP will be an irrelevance in the coming parliament, albeit no doubt a noisy one.
In contrast, the whole point of the Labour Party is to represent working people and the disadvantaged in society and to do so whenever possible in positions of power and influence.
Classically, the Scottish manifestation of this debate has been in terms of the Two Johns: Maclean and Wheatley.
Which would you rather have, Maclean the undoubted firebrand, imprisoned for his politics, first Soviet consul to the UK, but who achieved absolutely nothing, or Wheatley, who invented council housing and transformed the lives and health of literally millions of people in a legacy which endures today?
A further example comes to mind from earlier SNP surge: in the 1970s, some voters may have been tempted to vote for that party over Bruce Millan. However, Millan went on to be Secretary of State and in that position literally invented urban regeneration in Glasgow when he cancelled the New Town programme and committed the same expenditure to the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal (Gear) project.
He then became a Labournominated European Commissioner and worked with Strathclyde Regional Council to create the regional development programmes which brought many millions of pounds of investment in infrastructure and training to the people of Glasgow and beyond.
The same choice faces many Scots today, most pointedly in the east of Glasgow, where the choice of the voters is whether they wish to have their voice heard at the Cabinet table through Margaret Curran or to have it confined to a nobody on the opposition backbenches?
That is the choice: do voters want the SNP, in which case their MPs will be ultimately no more than noisy selfpublicists who will inevitably prove to be the proverbial empty vessels, or Labour whose men and women seek office to work hard in government to get things done, pragmatically and practically, with all of the difficulties and compromises which that entails? Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
I MUST admit that I laughed out loud when, in January of this year, Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party won the general election in Greece. How laughable, I thought, that so many Greek voters could be duped by opportunistic populists telling them exactly what they wanted to hear.
Time and again, Syriza scoffed at the country’s massive debts, deficit and interest payments, attacked the “architects of austerity” (Germany’s Angela Merkel and IMF chief Christine Lagarde) and tirelessly declared themselves to be “antiausterity”, “anti-establishment” and, of course, “progressive”.
It beggars belief that half of Scotland is now about to fall for the exact same confidence trick. In fact, our situation is even more ridiculous – Greece, after all, didn’t have Greece as a cautionary example. Keith Gilmour, 0/1, 18 Netherton Gardens, Netherton Gate, Glasgow.
DR Alexander Waugh (Letters, April 29) highlights the many positive contributions which the Liberal Democrats have made in the last five years in forming and controlling government policy. Had the LibDems not entered into coalition with the Conservatives we would be in a worse situation than we are in just now. Dr Waugh therefore concludes that accordingly there is no reason why the Liberal Democrats should suffer electorally.
Unfortunately for Dr Waugh and the LibDems there is such a thing as public perception, and it is that which will adversely affect their electoral chances.
I am reminded of the proverb that if you fly with the crows then you will be shot with the crows. The proverbial grape shot will take its toll on many LibDem candidates on May 7. Sandy Gemmill, 40 Warriston Gardens, Edinburgh.
RECENTLY I have attended four hustings meetings where the standard of all candidates present has ranged from impressive to outstanding. Complementary to these proceedings, bar one, was an adequate audio system. It was not so in the final contest of candidates – not a microphone in sight. The net result was audience participation proved almost inaudible. Invariably each candidate attempted to respond at the same time culminating in animated dialogue between the candidates.
Regrettably, the questions tabled ranged from future local housing needs, local flooding issues and the upsurge of food banks locally. Little mention far less discussion on Trident, defence policy, immigration took place. Reference to asylum seekers, considering current human disasters, was glaringly absent.
The erudite panel were worthy of more than a grilling on matters parochial. Interestingly, the SNP candidate failed to appear. In this instance she chose wisely. Allan C Steele, 22 Forres Avenue, Giffnock.