Barnett Formula like run on loo roll

SIR, – According to Dennis Forbes Grattan (Letters, March 14), Scotland would be skint if it did not have England.

Neither New Zealand nor Norway appear to need the Barnett Formula, unlike, it seems, Scotland in order to not just survive but thrive.

Indeed Norway has a trillion dollar sovereign oil wealth fund and New Zealand did not bail out their banks to the tune of

£45 billion and then, being major shareholders of a bank, allow it to close whatever branches it liked without doing anything about it.

In the mid to late 1970s it was suggested, given the amount of industrial action that was happening during a Labour government and the apparent power of the unions, that whosoever pays the piper calls the tune, except, it seems, if you are a private bank bailed out with taxpayers’ cash.

In the latter case you can do as you please, it seems.

Are they a private sector employer or public sector employer subject to the constraints of other public sector employers such as councils, or are they like the BBC who seem to use the licence fee to do as they please?

While what Professor Hugh Pennington said on Radio Scotland about using gin to wash your hands was probably a little bit facetious it at least had a logic to it given that alcohol, if strong enough, will have an effect on the virus just as it seems will good oldfashioned soap and water.

Buying lots and lots of toilet rolls does not appear to have the same effect.

The latter is like the argument put forward by Dennis Forbes Grattan in suggesting Scotland would be skint if it did not have England to support it, in my opinion.

When, if ever, will unionists consider nationalists equals in the union with a positive part to play in it? I would suggest the answer is never, although I am happy to be proven wrong.

Peter Ovenstone, Orchard Grove,

Peterhead,