I READ the letter from Keith Gilmour (Letters, September 7) with increasing disbelief. If Mr Gilmour is trying to make political capital out of Nicola Sturgeon’s tears he should be made aware that MSPs in other parties were affected to the same extent.

Amazingly, he still believes Western intervention in the Middle East has been something other than a disaster – consider the ongoing disintegration of Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. I wonder if even Mr Gilmour would be “reduced to tears” if he saw pictures of innocent children, women and men blown to smithereens by Western air forces in these countries – these are pictures you will never see.

Bill McLean
Newmills, Dunfermline

THE photograph of little Alan Kurdi shows the power of images at a time when traditional media are shedding photographers (another story), and also how opinion can be changed according to what people are exposed to. Where have the pictures of dead Syrian kids been these past four years? Perhaps we have chosen not to look. Some put the number of dead in the Syrian war as high as 300,000.

French President Hollande is now preparing for airstrikes against Daesh, and no doubt there will be more calls for action here. But al-Assad’s government offer no protection from any rebels, and no doubt many more innocent souls who couldn’t escape this broken country will perish when the bombs start dropping again.

I offer no answers to this mess, I just wonder if anything would have been different had our leaders looked at countless other Alan Kurdis years ago.

Inge Wilson
Arbroath

I HAVE no idea why Keith Gilmour thinks we should have supported Syrian rebels against al-Assad. But of course we did – Western elements and Saudi Arabia have been funding rebels in Syria for over a decade.

The fact that these elements then morphed into Daesh has become an inconvenience as they aren’t doing what they were told. Sadly, until we can invent bombs and bullets that don’t kill innocent women and children and until we learn to stop interfering in other countries we will face the consequences of our actions while the innocent pay the price.

Dave McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll

WITH a second referendum constantly on the horizon, wouldn’t it be appropriate to have some inkling as to the progress, or indeed conclusions, regarding any investigations into alleged voting misdemeanours during the first referendum?

Added to the delay of the Chilcott report this is another such delay. The inescapable suspicion is that such delays deliberately exploit the passage of time to provide convenient "distance" from the potency of facts and findings.

Before a second indyref, I would deem it very sensible to have assurance that the whole process will be conducted in a manner beyond doubt and reproach. The first referendum did not satisfy such a process. There should be a presence of UN overseers and solid guarantees as to delivery of ballot boxes to counting centres, and indeed a much revised system of ensuring that postal votes are safely enumerated. Much requires doing to enhance the mechanics of democracy, and maybe a start in improving response time for inquiries would contribute to this enhancement.

Ian Johnstone
Peterhead

AS well as scheming to undermine an opposing party to skew election results and undercut the democratic process, as well as lying about same, why is Alistair Carmichael – now involved in legal action – still not stepping down? Is there any end to the self-aggrandising nature of some politicians? Surely the LibDems are not so obliterated they couldn’t find another candidate? Maybe that is asking too much but there are more important things going on than a liar clinging on to his seat in the face of his own obvious moral failings and now, this proper legal challenge.

Please note I am not writing this letter because I despise the LibDems for propping up a callous Tory government or for lying to the electorate just to be in power. Nor for student fees and overall lack of cojones, or for the fact that every time I walk past their offices near Haymarket I want to spit.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

IN an excellent article, Caroline Leckie compared the current refugee situation to the plight of Irish people coming to Glasgow during the potato famine (Give them safe routes out of war, The National, September 7). This is an apposite comparison but she made two errors in her analysis. She called them immigrants but at that time all of Ireland was within the UK and therefore they were in precisely the same position, if not the same boat, as the Highlanders who responded in the same way to the famine. They were definitely not immigrants.

Secondly she says that they were “absorbed”. I would argue that they weren’t. They determinedly held on to their religion and culture in a new society which was not united in welcoming either. They changed Glasgow and the west of Scotland, possibly paving the way for later migrants and immigrants to Scotland. Glasgow is so different from the rest of Scotland that people from the north sometimes regard a trip to Glasgow as an adventure unlike any other trip you can take within Scotland. Glasgow is unique. Some aspects of the Irish religion and the culture have faded but one monument remains to those Irish refugees. It is a sporting, cultural and charitable organisation of worldwide renown which is forever Scottish and yet always refers back to its Irish roots whilst still welcoming fans from differing backgrounds. Glasgow Celtic FC is a way of life to its supporters. Long may it remain so.

David Crines
Hamilton

ASTHMA UK has closed its "branch offices" in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, after several years of providing a direct personal contact and service within each of the three home nations outside England.

It has now decided to operate a digital resource as a means of "reaching out". The regional offices were set up just around the start of devolution and were an excellent example of a London-based charity listening to people beyond the M25, and a realisation that managers in centralised offices cannot understand, never mind react to, the needs of those hundreds of miles away, and with particular geographic needs. The offices were also set up in recognition that the responsibility for health was devolved and thus needed direct political lobbying.

The decision has been padded with an announcement that a research-based centre of excellence will be located in Scotland, which, while welcome, cannot compensate for the contradictory message sent out to the people and devolved governments by closing down local offices.

It may be those who wield power in head office in London genuinely feel what they have done is a step forward, but I fail to see the logic in it, especially from the viewpoint of the individual with asthma who may have little or no digital knowledge or access and who, above all, craves face-to-face help from someone local who can empathise with them.The decision appears to be management and possibly cost-led.

So are the "regions" just to be sources of cash for head office through fundraising? If so, we are being short-changed. Asthma UK head office have a lot of explaining still to do, and not just in management speak. From the perspective of the isolated individual with asthma, this decision hardly reinforces the better together argument.

Tom Garrett, former trustee of the National Asthma Campaign
Bishopton

THE choice of headline for a piece on the dilemma of some Labour MPs in a UK Sunday newspaper was encouraging: “Labour’s moderates start their long dark night of the soul”.

In Saint John of the Cross’s original Dark Night Of The Soul, the acolyte has to reconcile conflicting ideas, give up notions of material gain and self advancement, and purge unprincipled thoughts, in order to follow the leader.

Geoff Naylor
Winchester


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