Do not blame Brexit for Scots’ lack of prospects
YOUR article “Universities hit as 2,500 EU academics quit in the last three years” (The Herald, December 28) is a wonderful piece of Trumpian “fake news”. No wonder The Scottish Libdem education spokesperson Beatrice Wishart, not able to accept reality or resist opportunity, uses this statistic as a stick to beat Brexiters with.
Do we readers not deserve some balance here? It is not the gross number of leavers that signify but rather the net number. In other terms, how many of these leavers have been offset by replacement arrivers? In any case, that is not the real point of concern.
“Scotland,” says Ms Wishart, “has some of the best universities in the world but their academic excellence is anchored to the talents of their people, many of whom are from the EU.” It has been ever thus (at least for some good while). When I arrived at Edinburgh University in the early 1960s the department was staffed largely by non-scottish (mostly English) incomers (including myself as an Australian). The muchexpanded, present-day department is staffed mostly by incomers from the EU and elsewhere. Then as now you could count the number of Scottish staff on the fingers of one hand and still have a couple left over to pick your nose with, if desired.
The problem for Scottish universities is not to be obligated to provide employment for large numbers of European academics, excellently qualified as most are, but who largely cannot find employment (or on so favourable terms as) in their homelands. It is for Scottish universities to staff themselves from the by and large now legion of the cream of Scottish graduates and alumni/ae whom they have been churning out over the years. Where has all this Scottish talent gone and why is it not being exploited and tempted back? From my experience many decamp after graduation to the old “Empire” – Canada, Australia and especially the United States, where employment is easier, prospects brighter and conditions and salaries far superior to those prevailing here.
The situation as regards staffing the Scottish universities is thus much the same as for the British NHS. What is to be deplored is not the loss of opportunity for EU and other aspirants but the lack of opportunity and prospects for home-grown talent. Let the politicians, including Ms Wishart, direct their efforts to solving that particular challenge if they are truly concerned about the future academic life and prosperity of their country and leave political point-scoring aside.
Darrell Desbrow, Dalbeattie.
ACCORDING to Nicola Sturgeon and many of the SNP correspondents in this newspaper we Scots are now (conveniently) devoted Europeans and wish to turn our backs on the “little
Englanders”, the US and the Commonwealth. Also the fact we would have been out of the EU if we had voted Yes in 2014 is now to be “airbrushed” out of history by the SNP lest it spoils its narrative about being “dragged out” out of the EU by RUK.
Furthermore, not to be discussed or recognised is the uncomfortable truth that the SNP lost the Scottishwide vote in 2014 and the Uk-wide EU referendum in 2017 and in doing so Mrs Sturgeon wants to tear up the Edinburgh Agreement and the EU referendum result in an attempt to hide the hypocrisy of the SNP arguments for independence. More importantly, given the US trade disputes with the EU which have resulted in tariffs of $7.5 billion placed on goods during October, the recent announcement to curb the Nord Stream 2 pipeline (designed to supply the EU with cheap Russian gas) and the clear intent to tighten the trade screws further on Fortress Europe this year, completely changes the ball game as far as I am concerned. Indeed if Boris Johnson plays his cards right, the UK could be in the enviable position of significant trade deals with the US (free of US EU tariffs) the EU and the Commonwealth putting the “Great” back into Britain. Alternatively, one could opt to believe that somehow it is better for Scotland to go it alone outside the UK internal market, the EU single market (for an indefinite time period), be outside a trade deal with the US and the Commonwealth along with a “toy town” currency. Ian Lakin, Aberdeen AB13.
RECENT posturing from Brussels on access to British fishing waters demonstrates the predatory relationship that has been built up at our expense.
The Spanish, French, Dutch and others have built up fishing fleets beyond their domestic limits to fish in waters that our political elite have given away without any return. To add insult to injury, these continental boats were built using subsidies, to which we are net contributors, while our own fishing fleets have been reduced in the name of conservation.
The previous shameful surrender of our fishing waters led to unemployment in our rural, coastal regions. This was an Eu-mandated transfer in which our politicians took away jobs from British workers and swapped them for poverty imported from the continent.
The time has come to swap back. There will likely be significant job losses in Spanish and French coastal communities but these jobs were looted and should not have been created in the first place. These boats were fishing for euros from the pockets of British people. Tom Walker, Loanhead.
Letters to the Editor, which should not exceed 500 words, must include a full address (not for publication) and contact number for verification. Email letters@theherald.co.uk, or post to Letters, The Herald, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB. We may edit submissions.
DAVID J Crawford (Letters, December 31) makes the aspirational claim that “improvements could be made if the SNP administration had all of Scotland’s tax revenue to play with rather than half”. Our national accounts (GERS 2018/19) state we tax-raised, with a geographical share of oil revenues, £62.7 billion but spent £75.3bn, giving Scotland an annual £12.6bn of spending not raised by our own taxation. Scotland directly administered £45bn (72 per cent) of spending from our tax raised, and more than £63bn of spending (more than 100 per cent of the total tax we raise) is immediately soaked up by spending on such as health, education and social security, and by UK administration of our pensions, housing benefit and other social security.
Additional UK spending on common UK services such as defence, transport infrastructure, EU net contributions, are effectively provided tax-free to our administration at Holyrood. With this extra £2,000 per person to spend than in England, to assist our rurality, there are no valid Holyrood excuses left for the deepening and diminishing health, education, transport, and homelessness performance we see reported on.
The other unevidenced claim by Mr Crawford is that “the Scottish NHS outperforms the NHS in the other countries of the Union”. This has become political mantra, but is simply not the case. Overall A&E performance is more the exception with 89 per cent meeting the fourhour target in Scotland compared to 85 per cent in England. From the ISD Scotland and NHS England official statistics we are falling further behind NHS England, particularly since 2014. Scotland now has an average of 1,492 hospital beds blocked daily with delayed discharge patients as at October 2019, a magnitude some three times higher than the England rate. For potentially life-saving key diagnostics received within the six weeks target the Scotland NHS performance has plunged to 82 per cent compared to a robust 96 per cent south of the Border as at September 2019, a performance we once matched in 2014. For the RTT (Referral To Treatment) standard within 18 weeks performance is at 77 per cent and more than 250,000 patients missing the Treatment Time Guarantee, compared to a much higher 85 per cent in England, again as at September 2019.
Leaving the UK as a mythical salvation whilst ignoring fundamental currency, reserves, border, trade and fiscal deficit issues, and no longer sharing economic risk with the UK, will impose a economic recession with unprecedented cuts to already-struggling core public services and challenging levels of social protection.
Richard Richardson,
Glasgow G42.
ALAN Fitzpatrick (Letters, December 31) attempts to defend the use of “once in a generation” by those opposed to independence in order to prevent another referendum, by pointing to its use in the 2014 White Paper Scotland’s Future by Alex Salmond.
As so often, what is particularly interesting is that part of my letter which Mr Fitzpatrick studiously ignores – namely the statistics from Professor Curtice’s website What Scotland Thinks, which show that opinion on independence is now almost evenly split. Might it be the determination of such as Mr Fitzpatrick to avoid another referendum is prompted by the fear that this time they might just lose? “Never mind if there is a majority who want to be independent, Alex Salmond said ‘Once in a generation’!”
Has it not come to something when the Unionist side has to hide behind a quote from a document of which they were critical of almost every other word, written by someone they would not have believed if they had told them the time of day, in order to justify their position. Perhaps better than anything, it illustrates the extreme and increasing poverty of their argument against Scottish independence.
Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.
IT is always of interest to see real examples of “Scotland’s place in the UK”. Hence, with the release from the National Archives, we can examine why two Englishmen (one MP, one Lord) thought it would be a good wheeze for Scotland to exist in a different time zone from them, but then how another Englishman stopped their scheme (“Major was strongly opposed to separate Scottish timezone”, The Herald, December 31). Scots had no genuine role in all this, there was no consultation or reference as to our wishes.
Of course that generation of Scottish Tory MPS were entirely voted out by the Scottish electorate in 1997, but some of them are still legislating over us to this day, via a risible elevation to the peerage. That is reflective of “Scotland’s place in the UK”, which is one of cringing subservience of the Scottish Office and its usuallyunrepresentative office-bearer.
GR Weir, Ochiltree.