Northern Ireland case for funds is no more pressing than ours

LETTERS

DISCUSSING the ConservativeDemocratic Unionist Party agreement, Ian Lakin (Letters, June 30) says that the extra funding for Northern Ireland is “much needed”. Why exactly is extra funding much needed for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland or Wales? Since the time of the Troubles, Northern Ireland has always had money thrown at it. When I was a book buyer for a public library service (some years ago) I used to go annually to a library supplier in the north of England to spend what was left of our, at that time, fairly generous book fund. Often, there were librarians from Northern Ireland there at the same time, and to say that I was jealous of their spending power is putting it mildly.

Further, on what basis does Mr Lakin calculate that Scotland would lose £8 billion on achieving independence? Even if this were true, it doesn’t say anything positive about the way we have been governed by Westminster down the years. The whole point of independence is to allow us to do things differently and to improve life for the citizens of this country. That ain’t going to happen ever under any Westminster government. When I look at the success of several small countries in Europe, many with fewer natural resources and smaller populations than Scotland, I have to wonder: why can’t we do just as well?

And finally, why is our so-called deficit “eye-watering”, but not the UK’s? And finally, finally, who says the SNP is going to run an independent Scotland?

Ian Baillie,

1 Tudhope Crescent, Alexandria.

WOULD the SNP please stop whingeing about the £1 billion pay-out to Northern Ireland? Is it not aware that political bribes fall outwith the scope of the Barnett formula?

William Thomson, 25 Lithgow Place, Denny.

I DO hope that the 13 DUP (Davidson Unionist Party) MPs will ensure that their support for the UK Government is dependent on Scotland getting a billion pounds.

Graham Charlesworth, 13 Bornais, South Uist.

IT was always preposterous to structure a consultation on a draft referendum bill to try to exclude comments from those who disagreed with the idea of holding another referendum. Yet that is exactly what the SNP Government did (“Sturgeon accused of cover-up over referendum bill consultation”, The Herald, June 30). Now the SNP Government has compounded this by trying to minimise public comment on the outcome of the consultation by issuing the results on the day the Scottish Parliament closed for its summer recess.

With Orwellian phrasing, the report analysing the results of the consultation, attempts to explain its exclusion of the views of those who nevertheless did write in with criticism of the idea of a referendum rerun. Whilst admitting “the main theme” of these was “the principle of holding another referendum on Scottish independence”, the summary explained that “it was not within the scope of this project to conduct an analysis of these comments”. Some consultation this then, when those who do not agree with the Government are excluded from the analysis of responses.

While the timing of the release of the report is a blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament, the big issue is that the independence of the Scottish civil service has again been undermined by its involvement in such a shabby attempt at misinformation. The original document issued by the Scottish Government in October 2016 was headed “Consultation on a draft referendum bill”, a title of pure political “double-speak”.

The process steered respondents away from commenting on any of the fundamental issues that the SNP did not want raised, such as the wording of the question to be used in a second referendum, or whether it was right to be contemplating another referendum so soon after the last one. The Scottish civil service code makes clear that no civil servant should engage in seeking to mislead. Yet what else was this whole sham process about if not that?

If the civil service code was breached, it happened because of the pressure of Scottish ministers to shape the consultation in this way, so implying a breach of the ministerial code. In turn the funds used in this exercise will have been a misuse of public money.

Keith Howell,

White Moss, West Linton, Peebleshire.

ISN’T it time for the SNP not only to pause but also to consider building bridges not walls?

We wait three weeks for Nicola Sturgeon to tell us she’s merely delaying the date by which she’ll demand to hold a second independence referendum to – probably – late 2019 or 2020.

As Brexit looms, surely we should reach out to our closest neighbours, friends, relatives, and greatest trading partner south of the Border? First Minister, please stop manufacturing enmity. Try instead to create goodwill, friendliness and fellowship.

Martin Redfern, 12 Merchiston Gardens, Edinburgh.

I AM no Einstein but in response to Bill Stewart’s worthy defence of geometry and his decision to leave algebra for others to commend (Letters, June 28) I offer as my Theory of Special Inability the equation: E=mc2 – where E is the number of days before Theresa May is replaced as Prime Minister, m represents a unit of 0.5 billion, and c is the number of Democratic Unionist MPs.

Around 10 months. Easy as Pi.

R Russell Smith, 96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.

SCOTLAND currently has 12,000 MW of generation plant to meet a maximum system demand of 5,000 MW - an overcapacity of 7,000 MW. This means that the surplus plant, built at a cost of around £20 billion based on the Thames Array data, must sit idle every day of the year.

How, therefore, can the Climate Change Secretary claim that “Scots can save hundreds of millions of pounds on their fuel bills over the life time of the plan for the surplus 7,000 MW 22” when the Energy Secretary has failed to explain how the owners of these units can make a profit from generators sitting idle on the Scottish network (“Our plan to lead the way on climate change”, Agenda, The Herald, June 30)?

The fact that 40 per cent of Scots are in fuel poverty indicates that there must be a mechanism for the wealthy owners of the surplus units to make massive profits from units that do not generate electricity on a regular basis. Can MSPs provide an explanation?

Ian Moir, 79 Queen Street, Castle Douglas.