IF ever we needed a “spring statement” from the Chancellor, it is now – and if ever we needed the Chancellor to step up and assist struggling families, it is now as we await the spring statement tomorrow.

A very worrying forecast is that inflation will hit 8% by June, coupled with the worrying projection that energy bills are about to increase by £700 in April for those connected to the National Grid and even worse increases for those in rural areas with no access to the grid. Petrol is at an all-time high, and National Insurance increases are just around the corner.

So the Chancellor has some tough decisions to make, but they are decisions that are required if the country has not to enter melt down.

First priority should be a windfall tax on the energy companies who are making millions in profits at our expense, it is immoral. Second, we have had 10 years of austerity, with benefit increases capped at 3.1% this year, whereas here in Scotland devolved benefits will see increases of 6%, something the Chancellor must at a minimum equal regarding reserved benefits to Westminster.

Another proposal for the Chancellor on benefits would be to reinstate the £20/wk uplift to Universal Credit. Third, petrol currently releases 60p/litre in fuel tax/duty, something that could be reduced by the Chancellor. After all, transport is the nucleus to which the remainder revolves, resulting in wide-ranging benefits for households.

READ MORE: Kate Forbes issues challenge to Rishi Sunak on cost-of-living crisis

Finally, the imminent National Insurance rise, which is a tax on jobs, could be softened by increasing the threshold before one pays NI. There is desperation in the country at large, households are crying out for assistance, so the question is, will the Chancellor step up and what are the Chancellor’s priorities, and will those priorities meet the needs of struggling households?

Catriona C Clark
Banknock

AS if to exemplify the rudderless fool he is Prime Minister, Johnson grabbed what he presumably thought was a lifebelt toward saving his own credibility by claiming that the war in Ukraine was like Brexit, i.e. Ukraine defending itself from dictatorial war-mongering Russia was somehow similar to UK seeking release from enforcement by the EU while conveniently forgetting its membership is by choice of individual nations.

However, despite this masterpiece of barmy, indeed inhumane logic, a deafening silence from the PM somehow reigns over the comparison between Scotland seeking to leave larger domineering London-based UK and Ukraine defending itself from its larger domineering neighbour Russia.

Scotland has had its land, seas, people and resources pillaged by its larger neighbour for centuries, all apparently above board of course by the ways and means of the self-acclaimed Mother of Parliaments and its change on-the-run, as required, unwritten constitution. Meanwhile Russia has taken the wholly intolerable, more immediate route of destruction of civilisation in Ukraine presumably toward the goal of securing Ukraine’s natural resources.

READ MORE: Ukraine war influences Scottish voters over independence planning, poll shows

There is, of course, the elephant in the room. If Johnson seeks a comparison with Brexit, he need compare no further than Scotland seeking independence from Westminster. His UK voted itself out of the EU, Scotland did not!

Tom Gray
Braco

WHILE we are thinking about the nightmare that is Ukraine, and Putin’s threat to go nuclear, we must realise that we in Scotland are directly involved.

Speaking in King’s College London in November 1992, Malcolm Rifkind the then minister of defence said that Trident could fire a single warhead “to deliver an unmistakable message of Britain’s willingness to defend her vital interests”. This means that contrary to popular imagination, far from being only a “deterrent”, or a weapon of last resort, Britain is prepared to use Trident, and to use it first.

This so-called Rifkind doctrine is known as Tactical Trident or Sub Strategic Trident. It is the theory under which we currently deploy Trident. That’s why a Trident sub was spotted sailing past Gibraltar towards the eastern Med at the start of the Gulf War. It was positioning itself to launch a “sub strategic” missile in the conflict.

Today we can be confident that our military experts give Trident an essential role in the planned response to Putin’s threat.

Aren’t we lucky to have Trident to protect us from the oncoming catastrophe which can’t happen because we have Trident?

Brian Quail
via email

IN a letter containing core elements of the Alba Party and Scottish Labour’s playbook, Glenda Burns (Letters, March 20) complains about the universal nature of the council tax rebate of £150. She says that if the funds had been directed to the poorest, the recipients would have received £600. Can she now tell us what administrative structure could have been used to identify and means-test the beneficiaries, how long it would have taken to set it up and how much money would have been taken from the total pot in administration costs?

Douglas Turner
Edinburgh

BORIS wants nuclear – another sinister decision which again will be taken out of Scotland’s hands to be dumped in Scotland without consent from the Scottish people.

It’s bad enough in scientific hands, but in the hands of Westminster’s big-wigs, Scotland will pay big time in the years and decades to come. For Scotland, we can’t let our young generation be dictated to anymore.

Glen Peters
Paisley