WORRIED about the cost-of-living crisis? “Dinna fash,”, it’s OK folks, Boris Johnson has pronounced that his successor, whoever it is, will make help available to those most affected.

Liz Truss has stated that she will not support meeting with Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson to sit down and discuss the actions required to manage through this crisis. It would be bizarre to sit down with her rival and predecessor.

The longer the crisis trundles on, the more people it will hurt, and harder.

The CEO of Octopus energy stated that this crisis should be the top item on the incoming Prime Minister’s jobs list.

So Boris can’t make the big decisions and Truss and Sunak won’t. They have kicked it over to Kwasi Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi, the reserves, who are more than likely to be replaced by the incomer. Again, the people most affected are being left to hang and are those that least deserve it.

Insulate those houses most needing it at no cost to owners/ renters, using money from windfall tax, which also reduces energy demand for future years.

Alistair Ballantyne
Birkhill, Angus

THE cost-of-living crisis demands a return to pandemic measures. Looking out for each other, assisting those who simply cannot manage, the government stepping in financially with assistance to businesses and households.

During the pandemic, many who were shielding were dependant on food deliveries, and a similar scenario could be on the table for those who fall into poverty, who cannot afford to go shopping for essentials and who are sitting at home alone and cold as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

It is time for the country to pull together just as we did during the dark days of the pandemic. But it is also time for the Westminster government to govern, to take their focus off their internal business and address head-on the challenge of rising inflation, rising food prices and rising fuel costs.

The cost-of-living crisis is an emergency on a catastrophic scale, livelihoods are at stake, and action is urgent, as was highlighted in your front-page article “Sturgeon urges PM to convene emergency meeting” (Aug 9). For the UK Government, who currently have reserved powers over energy and welfare, to dismiss such a call because of the PM’s pending departure is diminishing the scale of the crisis, and ultimately the government will be guilty of the sin of omission!

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

THERE is a shortage of water in the south of England (Climate crisis threat has been made clear, Aug 5). Several commentators have suggested that areas with plenty of water should help out areas with a shortage. The prospect of a UK National Grid for water is being resurrected. How might this work?

It is easy to envisage that a public network for the whole UK where everyone benefits could be created using public funds. Scotland would pay its share to provide the link

with England. Later, it could be argued that transfer to the private sector would encourage “efficiencies” (and profit). In the interests of “levelling up”, Scottish consumers should pay in the same way as English consumers do at present via water metering.

As water becomes progressively “commoditised”, international pressures in a free-market economy would result in an unavoidable increase in the price of water. Soon, Scottish consumers in a country with abundant water would have families struggling to pay for it.

Does this sound far-fetched? Well, Scotland is currently self-sufficient in renewable electricity and produces four times as much oil as it consumes, yet Scottish consumers cannot afford to fuel their cars or heat their homes.

Kerr Walker
Alford

ENERGY and communications are the bloodstream of the state, and they should be there for us without question. And yet we are being exploited as customers of what has become a privatised version of that very life blood. Unable to heat our homes because of the cost of fuel, and having to haggle over the price of our broadband service every year or so.

Meanwhile the executives and shareholders of that life blood enjoy salaries and profits so large as to be incomprehensible to most of us.

The word “revolution” must surely come to mind.

Malcolm Parkin
Kinross

ON checking the Six Nations fixtures for 2023, I see that Scotland start with a home match on March 4 against England at Twickenham. I fear the absurdity contained in this statement might be lost on Tory MSPs who consider the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to be “home games”. But probably not, I think the Tory MSPs are acting the daft laddie and they ken fine!

Bill Drew
Kirriemuir