You think Biden is bad? Things could yet get worse

WHEN Joe Biden finally made it to the White House, the bien pensant and the leftist media coast-to-coast welcomed his election as a victory “for the American people”. The triumvirate of President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was cheered on as sensible, cool-headed professionals capable of saving the West.

Today they stand as the three figures responsible for the tragedy in Afghanistan. Mr Biden assured the nation there would be no repeat of Saigon with Americans climbing on roofs to evacuate in helicopters. Sadly, it looks as if some Americans won’t make it out at all while Afghans on whose loyalty and cooperation US forces depended for 20 years have been abandoned.

No-one seems to know why the US bailed out with no contingency plans. President Biden looks lost, scurrying away after briefings, leaving his press secretary to deliver implausible narratives. Mr Blinken and Mr Sullivan are pedestrian Washington apparatchiks, while the idea of Kamala Harris taking over if the President’s mental capacity continues to decline is frightening.

Dr John Cameron,

St Andrews.

Biden win not all down to Obama

I BELIEVE that John Birkett (Letters, August 27) allocates too much weight to the responsibility of Barack Obama in respect of the eventual election of Joe Biden as President of the United States.

While Mr Obama, as Presidential candidate in 2012, would have had a lot of influence on the decision by the Democratic Party on the choice of Vicepresidential candidate, the formal selection of Joe Biden was made through the nominating procedures of that party, which clearly has a major responsibility for where Joe Biden is today.

Moreover, the people of America at the 2020 election, knowing of Mr Biden’s age, political experience and abilities voted him into office in accordance with their election rules. Mind you, they had a choice between a long-term politician in his late seventies and Donald Trump.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

Renwick was ambassador from 1991-95; at the time of President Obama’s first inauguration in 2008, he was 71 and had retired many years before. It’s improbable, to say the least, that President Obama would have made a remark of that nature to an elderly retired British diplomat.

Does Mr Birkett have any evidence for his tale?

Doug Maughan,

Dunblane.

A long list of those let down

DESPITE the strident statements by many in the media, no one has ever rationally explained why we were in Afghanistan. I recall arguments during Gordon Brown’s brief tenure about why – and there was no conclusion.

As for the Afghans being “let down” by the British Government: just add them to the list behind Nazanine Zaghari Ratcliffe, schoolchildren, the poor, democracy, Northern Ireland peace, the thousands of unnecessary dead from the pandemic, small businesses, the environment, the elderly and so on and so on...

Amanda Baker,

Edinburgh.

We all want to be in a union

DAVID Leask is correct in that “our political jargon can be pretty mystifying…” (“There is a different way of doing Scotland’s politics: Non-separatist nationalism”, The Herald, August 27). While independence is regularly trailed as the current fulcrum of Scottish politics, almost nobody in Scotland has, or even claims, any interest in independence as such and union is the political objective of almost the whole of the Scottish electorate. The majority of voters have all along voted for the continued membership of the UK whereas, in recent years, a substantial minority have also advocated union, but with the EU rather than with the UK.

The comparison with Quebec is interesting and instructive but would have been closer if the separatist minority had sought, for example, to join the United States rather than national independence. However, to my knowledge, no elected politician at any level in Canada in living memory has advocated that Quebec exchange union with Canada for the USA and there has never been any intelligent support for that option.

Michael Sheridan, by Strachur, Argyll.

GERS report is home-grown

ALASDAIR Galloway again criticises me (Letters, August 27) for saying that the GERS figures (available on the Scottish Government website) are a true reflection of Scotland’s income and expenditure.

Who produces the Government Expenditure and Revenue Statistics? Scottish statisticians. Are they wrong? Are they all unionists intent on fiddling the figures? I think not. They show without a doubt that Scotland is better off as part of the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The statistics show that Scotland received £8.3 billion extra in reserved spending to fight the pandemic. This is a fact.

As Professor Ronald Macdonald, Professor of Macroeconomics and International Finance at Glasgow University, wrote earlier this month in The Herald: “This year’s dramatic GERS fiscal deficit figure of 22.4% of GDP again underscores the importance of the fiscal-risk pooling and sharing that occurs in political and monetary unions, such as the UK.”

William Loneskie,

Lauder.

Johnstone must act on FMQS

I AM surely not alone in asking the Presiding Officer to take an early and effective decision as Presiding Officer (not as a Green MSP) to remove the right of the Green Party to ask questions of the First Minister at First Minister’s Questions. Entering into a coalition with the SNP Government – and a coalition, whilst denied, it most certainly is – removes the Green Party as an official opposition party.

It would be wholly inappropriate for one of two junior ministers to have the opportunity and the right to ask questions of a Government in which they serve. Alison Johnstone, as Presiding Officer, needs to demonstrate her independence from the party she supports and act accordingly with immediate effect.

Richard Allison,

Edinburgh.

Co-operation has worked well

JILL Stephenson (Letters, August 27) writes that “everyone knows that the SNP has established itself as the opposition to the Government in London” but in actual fact, it is Scotland’s voters who have established the SNP as the opposition to the Government in London, electing a majority of SNP MPS at the last three General Elections.

Ms Stephenson suggests that the SNP doesn’t want a good working relationship with Westminster, but during the pandemic both governments have worked reasonably well together and co-operated where possible, and when Scotland is an independent country, its government, elected solely by the people of Scotland, will no longer be in the position of having one arm tied behind its back; and that equal footing should surely encourage a cordial relationship to be built with the government English voters elect.

Ruth Marr,

Stirling.

Put pupils’ needs centre stage

I FOUND the criticism of the General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS) a refreshing step forward in our education debate (Letters, August 27) but feel the authors, perhaps being academics, were pulling their punches. What I find is illogical and wholly misguided is having a national body responsible for setting standards of teaching but having no accountability for standards of pupil learning as a consequence. The two activities must be seen as one, to be effective.

Towards the end of the last century, informed thinkers in the field of organisational strategies often demonstrated that a reliance solely on input-driven management invariably resulted in the closed-shop, protectionist type of activity we associate with the GTCS monopoly.

The GTCS is often at pains to point out the professionalism of teachers in Scotland, while alluding to the fact that it is now an all-graduate profession and teachers have to be registered with it. What evidence is there that the standard of learning in Scotland has measurably increased in the years since the requirement for teacher registration with it came into effect?

Is it not time we took potential teachers’ eligibility and bureaucratic etiquette out of the limelight and put pupils’ needs centre stage? Then we might start shaking off the faux trappings of professionalism which the GTCS seemingly holds in such high esteem.

Bill Brown, Milngavie.

Fife moved to Bute

I FOUND the letter from Kenneth Fraser regarding the steamer Duchess of Fife (August 27) of particular interest. I had no idea that there was another vessel, of the same name, serving the south coast of England.

Back in 1990, together with two colleagues, Tom Hart of Bearsden and Ian Maclagan of Rothesay, unfortunately both now deceased, I published a book entitled Memories of the Clyde – Duchess of Fife 1903-1953 (Hart, Maclagan & Will, ISBN 0 9516140 0 2).

The book charted the life of this popular Clyde steamer in black and white pictures from her building to the end of her service.

One of our readers, a paddle steamer enthusiast called Laurie Skinner, gave us a four-foot scale model of The Duchess of Fife – the Clyde one – which he had built some 30 years earlier. He was anxious to find a suitable home for it. We, in turn, gifted his splendid model to the Bute Museum, which was at that time under the stewardship of Leonard Cumming, in around May 1993. I have no reason to believe that it is not still there.

David G Will,

Milngavie.

Deathly hallowed

ROSEMARY Goring’s article about “trigger warnings’ in theatres (“‘Trigger warnings’ about Romeo and Juliet are a total insult to audiences”, The Herald, August 25, and Letters, August 27), reminded me of the advertisement announcing the opening of Thomas Kydd’s Spanish Tragedy in London in 1592. Far from giving warning, this spoke glowingly of five murders, three rapes, a young man biting off his own tongue and “sundry other devices to prevent tediousness”.

Robin Dow,

Rothesay.