Letters to The National December 21: Blind praise for work by so-called Scottish ‘literati’ is misplaced

Of course I never knew McIlvanney. I didn’t know Jane Austen either; but that in no way prevents me from perceiving the crystalline clarity with which she illuminated the human character, for good or ill, nor the unarguable critiques of human behaviour embedded in her work.

On Scottish writers, Meg Henderson could have added Iain Crichton Smith, Robin Jenkins, Jessie Kesson, Flora Garry ... all of whom were concerned not with caricatures or stereotypes, but with conveying the nature and qualities of the characters they found in their various (Scottish) communities and environments. Dozens of other Scots could be added (Joe Corrie, anyone?); but they all had in common a desire to examine and illuminate the lives led by the humans they depicted.

Another mark of superior merit and relevance is that some of these writers have been translated into numerous languages, which suggests a universality in their work markedly absent from McIlvanney’s.

I see no particular merit in the products of “literati”, and I suspect that most if not all of those cited would have vehemently rejected the term as a description of themselves. It’s far too commonly associated with the precious, self-absorbed effusions of a metropolitan coterie who wouldn’t recognise real life as ninety-five per cent of us know it if it ran up and bit them in the leg.

As before, my single point is that McIlvanney’s writerly merits have been wildly overblown, which does him no more service nor justice than would a blanket condemnation.

Colin Stuart
Saline, Fife

Taxing the value of land is egalitarian, efficient and easy

I AGREE with the sentiments in Mhairi Black’s article (Don’t forget those less fortunate at Christmas, The National, December 19). Tax evasion is indeed a huge problem, it has been since the inception of income tax around 1840. Yet the same old failed/tired “solutions” are trotted out and resources wasted trying to “solve” it.

Centuries back, all public expenditure was funded by a land tax. The result – no evasion. You own it, you pay.

The concept is very simple – a tax on land, is simple, efficient, egalitarian and impossible to avoid. A tax of a few percentage points on the value of the land (not property) would yield enough to substantially reduce income tax benefitting the low paid and rendering income tax evasion redundant. In effect it would free people up to work longer or even to take up work, if it were available. Income tax is a disincentive to work.

Land is a gift of nature, enhanced by public investment in infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools, hospitals etc. Why should the workforce pay for the public investment when the owners of the land get the benefit of higher prices from their land due to public investment?

So long as we have an efficient, effective Land Register, evasion would be impossible.

Catherine Gilchrist
Bowmore, Islay

AS a drowning man lashes out for something to hold onto, Prime Minister Cameron is desperately trying to salvage a deal from European Union leaders (PM: June 16 'likely date for EU referendum', The National, December 19).

What started out as a fundamental reform of our relationship with the EU has long since gone to the wall, and the focus is now on restricting in-work benefits for four years for those from the EU coming to the UK.

This is pure cosmetic tinkering. As we know those coming from the EU don’t come for the allure of EU benefits, a fact recently verified by the Office for Budget Responsibility, who said that this restriction on benefits would have a minimal impact on immigration.

Immigration from the EU makes a positive contribution to the UK economy, and yet the Prime Minister is irresponsibly failing to promote its merits and portraying it as a bad thing. By failing to achieve meaningful restrictions from the EU and only achieving very superficial amendments, he will ultimately be seen to have gained little.

Mr Cameron, who will be seen to be deeply wounded by this whole affair, must very quickly begin to make the positive case for our membership of the EU or the UK will end up sleepwalking through the exit gates on an anti-immigration tide.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

REGARDING the projection of an £85m gap in police finances, I wonder how much police officer time is taken up sitting around in the waiting rooms of Scotland’s courts waiting to be called as witnesses (Audit reveals Police Scotland could face £85m gap in finances, The National, December 19). At a recent case I attended in Livingston there were at least three uniformed officers in attendance for the three hours I was there, with little else to do but chat to one another. Multiplying this across Scotland throughout the year must pretty well wipe out the SNP’s 1000 extra beat officers, I should imagine. There must be a better way to manage the justice system.

Ken Gibb
Address supplied

THE title of The National’s article on the audit report was “Audit reveals Police Scotland could face £85m gap in finances” (December 19). The article begins “Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority face an £85 million black hole in their finances by 2018/19.”

The omission of the word “could” and the introduction of “black hole” completely changes the tone of the article.

Audit Scotland is doing its job by pointing out that on the assumption of a one per cent annual increase in the budget, Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority could face a cumulative £85m gap in their finances by 2018/19.

The Scottish Government is taking steps to deal with this possibility, in fact it announced an additional £55m for the police service several days before this article was published.

John Jamieson
South Queensferry

I HAVE just read your report on the potential financial gap facing Police Scotland and given that you have reported in the past they, along with Fire and Rescue Services, are denied VAT returns amounting to tens of millions of pounds per annum from Westminster I find it strange that this is not mentioned.

RG Clark
Gorebridge

I WOULD welcome a further clarifying letter from Allan Sutherland (Letters, December 18) fill some gaping holes in his logic. Mr Sutherland does not dispute the fact of global warming, then with a logical handbrake-turn he promotes shale gas, and rubbishes wind energy and carbon capture! I would be greatly interested in how he accomplishes this logical miracle. I would also like to know what qualifies him to contradict the overwhelming opinion of the world’s climate scientists.

Derek Ball
Bearsden

I HAD to read Mr Sutherland’s letter twice. Maybe I misunderstood? No, to ignore melting ice caps, annual flooding, one big damp season that used to be called autumn/winter and it’s just all a big coincidence. We are in the middle of the warmest December on record. The longer we do nothing but build bigger walls or “flood defences” the quicker we (the world) will run out of options.

Congratulating Cameron and co on his anti-renewable cuts is depressing. I thought flat-earth thinking was a joke, but apparently it is alive and well. Roll on May.

V Nelson
Fife

It would be folly to split the Yes vote at Holyrood elections

ARE sounds of Unionist mirth, applause and clinking of glasses merely manifestations of traditional seasonal goodwill and conviviality?

I suggest not, and imagine that any unionist merriment indicates establishment approval of Jim Sillars and others advocating an anti-SNP vote on the 2016 Holyrood lists.

In the Indy-ref the Scots and their friends buried their differences and delivered a Yes campaign and vote, which rattled Westminster to its foundations. Now, with a Scottish Government in Holyrood and 56 Scottish MPs, we are being asked to again divide, despite the SNP – like it or not – being the only credible independence vehicle we have.

With the Tory vote at its bedrock of dinosaurs and centre- right reactionaries forming the bulk of Labour’s Scottish leadership and core vote, I believe it would be folly to splinter the Indy vote at this time.

The fact is, that while Holyrood 2016 is not an “independence” election, any marked fall in the SNP vote, apart from possibly allowing some unionist dead wood to slip in, will hearten Cameron and his Scottish Labour allies, allowing them to believe the Scots are back in their box and it is business as usual up North.

Therefore, although I am firmly on the Scottish left, I cannot at this point in time vote anything other than SNP constituency and list.

Anything else would be a risky indulgence.

Malcolm Cordell
Broughty Ferry, Dundee

REGARDING the Neighbourhood Food Collection in Tesco stores mentioned by Ewan Gurr of the Trussell Trust, is this really the best way to help those in need (Thousands are falling through a net that needs restrung, The National, December 18)?

Given the Trust’s size and reach, would it not be much more efficient for it to collect cash?

I understand that Tesco has supplemented customer donations, but how much has the supermarket made in additional profits from the extra food customers have bought (at cost price) to donate? Giving cash would also ensure those visiting food banks get what they need, rather than what happens to have been donated.

Joan Brown
Edinburgh

I AM disappointed to read the report “Members of teaching union vote to take industrial action over plans for restructuring” (The National, December 19).

I wonder if those involved ever consider that what they are proposing is to disrupt children’s education, and for those in the early years deprive them of their free school lunches. Those who will suffer most are the children from poorer backgrounds whose parent may have to make alternative child care arrangements, thereby incurring additional costs.

Perhaps the opposition politicians, who are forever pleading the case for levelling the playing field for children from poorer backgrounds, should meet both sides involved in the dispute and tell them to think of the children and parents who will be adversely affected – or are they just political pawns?

Thomas L Inglis
Fintry

REGARDING the forthcoming Dad’s Army film, I do hope the song “If you think old England’s done” has been consigned to history and replaced with words more appropriate to the considerable sacrifice of men and women from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and all the Commonwealth countries who have dug England and its Establishment out of war scenarios over the last two centuries.

Frederick Stewart
Aberdeen

PAUL McGhee (Letters, December 19), while enjoying the “old” National states that he is unhappy with the new and is considering no longer buying it .

I enjoy chocolate eclairs – imagine my disappointment on being offered one with two extra bites. I would eschew them immediately.

James Mills
Johnstone

I ACTUALLY prefer the new format. It now looks and feels even less like a traditional, mainstream newspaper and I love the wider space given over to opinion and the “National Conversation”.

Even if I didn’t like the new format I would always stick by the paper for its alternative writing styles and views, and of course for its overarching support for an independent Scotland.

Craig Falconer
Glasgow

The Long Letter

An independent Scotland needs a sovereign currency

GORDON MacIntyre-Kemp’s timely article concerning the money supply was a succinct and detailed account of the malaise that effects Western society’s banking industry (Smart move would be to stop stupid lending, The National, December 18).

One of the major contributors to the failure of the Yes vote to gain a majority in the independence referendum was the absence of any alternative to using the GBP. The electorate was given no clear story about where the money was going to come from. Certainly we could have used the pound, but we would also have inherited all the faults that using a private banking, debt-based money supply would incur.

Scotland, when independent, must have a sovereign currency. This means that all money will be issued by the state for the creation of tangible public assets. This currency will be the only legal tender within Scotland and will not be traded on world currency markets, thus taking it away from the influence of the international private banking industry.

Fractional reserve banking must be outlawed and only full reserve banking permitted. At a stroke, the power of the banks to control the legislature will be removed and money issued only by the state will be spent in the community, guaranteeing a more equal society.

In a union with the rest of the UK, it is virtually impossible to wrest the power of issuing of 97 per cent of the money in circulation from the private banks. They are too entrenched within Government and the Establishment, but with the clean political slate of a newly-independent Scotland, freedom from the dead hand of international banking can be achieved.

Andy Anderson and Ronnie Morrison, in their book Moving On, have provided a blueprint for an independent Scotland that will ensure a secure currency, free from the speculative financial markets and providing a more equable society. It should be required reading for all MSPs.

Tony Perridge
Inverness

THE article by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp on economic policy in the UK was particularly excellent even by Gordon’s high standards.

There appears to be a huge elephant in the room which has escaped everyone’s notice and which is gradually filling the room with elephant dung.

Everyone has noticed the elephant dung, and in spite of employing people to clean it up, is continuing to increase.

Yet no one is blaming the elephant. Politicians are blaming each other for the ‘dung’ problem while academics and economists are unable to see the elephant and are analysing the dung to measure its toxic content and its danger. Meanwhile the UK Government is demanding that “we have no alternative” but to increase food intake for the elephant, while not actually acknowledging the elephant’s existence.

In this small article Gordon has put a search light directly onto the elephant, and has shown us the cause of the rising dung heap and suggested we stop feeding the elephant and gently guide it out of the room into a more suitable environment before we will be successful in cleaning up the dung.

Andy Anderson
Dunoon