AS a coalition of organisations that supports children and young people, many of whom have mental health problems, we share the concerns of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland about proposed cuts of £38 million to planned mental health spending.
It should be noted that we were already experiencing a mental health emergency in Scotland even before Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis took hold. These have worsened an already devastating situation for many children and young people, resulting in a perfect storm of challenges.
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It therefore beggars belief that, in the face of a mental health tsunami, the Scottish Government is set to cut the mental health budget. Combined with this, an already tight budget will have to stretch even further to keep pace with soaring inflation.
With the resultant personal cost to those concerned and their families, as well to the economy overall, we need to invest more, not less, in our mental health services. The situation we are currently in could potentially lead to a lost generation of vulnerable children and young people who are missing out on the support they vitally need.
To address this, we must ensure our mental health services are protected and would urge the Scottish Government to reconsider these cuts and commit to increase investment, ensuring that our children and young people receive the high-quality care they need, when they need it.
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition:
Kenny Graham, Falkland House School;
Lynn Bell, LOVE Learning;
Stephen McGhee, Spark of Genius;
Niall Kelly, Young Foundations
BRIAN Lawson (Letters, Nov 4) rightly questions how raising interest rates is supposed to contain inflation when by its very effect it is also inflationary.
I understand this measure is supposed to dampen demand to allow inflation to steady and fall.
However, this fall in demand means that people won’t be spending. Retail sales fall. People desert the hospitality industry. Sales across the board fall.
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All this is supposed to drive down prices as suppliers compete for what business remains and therefore bring inflation down. Then interest rates are supposed to fall; job done, everything in the economy garden is rosy again.
Sadly, this contemporary economic medicine is in danger of killing the patient it is supposed to be trying to save. And this manifests itself in the predicted longest period of recession in living memory. This will happen because such severe dampening of demand will cause uncertainty and unemployment as the goods and services are no longer produced and supplied. People will be forced into debt, the poorer will be forced into the clutches of the loan sharks offering loans to the desperate at an APR of 149% (now legalised, as currently advertised on TV), their next step into penury.
Yet, despite governing for 12 years, we still have the Tories claiming this is not their fault; the pandemic, Ukraine and energy crisis are to blame. A hypocritical and nonsensical excuse they didn’t afford Labour over the 2009 global financial crash.
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I believe this is a system-engineered recession ploy to reduce the living standards of the working and poor classes and consolidate and increase the wealth of the rich classes. I consider it’s also “designed” to dampen demand for inflation-level wage increases, with those workers supposed to be grateful for whatever they do succeed in being granted, while their living standards are reduced.
This is clearly an economy in turmoil, with measures being taken to protect the wealthy, and the rest of us being hung out to dry.
And the colony of Scotland has no say in how to get ourselves out of this blue-and-red Tory-created economic hole.
Not only is this the time for independence, there’s never been a better, more appropriate time for it.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
STAN Grodynski’s reasoned argument on the topic of Scottish teams’ performances in Europe (Letters, Nov 2) is sound. However, this misses a key point that is very relevant for Scottish football: the total dominance of the Scottish Premiership by just two teams.
We are closing in on 40 years of the top league being won by either Celtic or Rangers. Each weekend regularly throws up hammerings delivered by these two teams to pretty much any of the others. Who wants to see their teams regularly well beaten? Given all the handwringing over their teams’ performances in Europe this season, the answer it seems is no-one.
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This financial disparity of the top two, with a semi-permanent relegation threat on almost everyone else, will not drive the investment required across the board to raise the quality of the game and the experience for the fans.
The ridiculous procession that is the Scottish Premiership has lost my attention and after 50 years of regularly supporting my team at matches (including being a season ticket holder) I’ve given up. I won’t attend again and I know of quite a few others who are doing the same. I can spend my precious money in ways that better entertain me.
It’s time for the SPFL to get this sorted and create a genuinely competitive top league.
Nicoll Fletcher
via email
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