A time for talk?

Only a few days ago, SNP Health Secretary, Shona Robison, announced a campaign to attempt to address the GP shortfall that’s grown to 800 under this SNP administration. Fair enough; action is overdue.

Hang on a minute – surely pretty much everything the SNP is doing is designed to make Scotland unattractive to professionals such as doctors, nurses and experienced senior teachers? Already income tax is higher in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK. There is

every sign, mindful of Labour’s increasing popularity and with radical Greens co-convener, Patrick Harvie pulling her strings, that Nicola Sturgeon’s budget will increase the income tax burden for middle and higher income earners.

Plus, let’s remember that to grow GP numbers, Ms Robison is going to need to attract GPS to move house here from elsewhere in the UK.

Our property taxes in the form of LBTT, are massively higher than stamp duty elsewhere. Sadly, an experienced GP would be better off moving to the Midlands or north of England, where property prices have yet to regain their 2007 peak.

It’s increasingly clear that next year the SNP, fearful of losing the nationalist majority at the 2021 Holyrood elections, will step up agitating for indyref2 in 2020. Who wants to move to a part of the UK in a constant state of constitutional upheaval?

Ms Sturgeon and Ms Robison are longstanding friends – perhaps it’s time for a wee chat?

MARTIN REDFERN Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh