SO Rishi Sunak, the silent one, will not talk, let alone negotiate, with any of the NHS trade unions. I am wondering why that is?

He talks about the independent review body he relies on to do the job for him. So whatever the pay review body comes up with is the de facto settlement figure. No more and no less and no questions asked.

A man of his money-making capabilities must have some knowledge of “how to do” when it comes to having to make a living for his family. But I forget, his wife is already a millionaire as well as his in-laws. So that’s a non-starter. Perhaps his education taught him a thing or two about survival in a real world. Or perhaps not where Winchester College is concerned, at £15,000 a year per pupil.

Perhaps it’s more reasonable to think he hasn’t a clue about the ordinary people, where they work or how they live in a real world. In especial when it comes to the ordinary people and the trade unions, which were created to protect ordinary people and their ordinary but exceptional jobs.

Now there’s a thought. Probably, Rishi Sunak just hasn’t any idea about negotiating, what it means or how to. He can employ someone else to do those menial jobs that crop up from time to time in his role as Prime Minister. I wonder just what he was expecting when he volunteered for the job. Did he even wonder why no-one else did? Or if they did, they quickly dropped out of the race.

But Rishi Sunak is a money maker, just like the rest of his pals on the front bench. We know this from the recent exposure of those who made private fortunes from the Covid-19 materials scandal.

So should we worry about Sunak and his inability to govern his country? No! Let’s worry about those ordinary trade union members who are fighting the traditional way for improved working conditions, and more importantly, a pay rise to suit their Tory-created financial situations.

Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife

I READ with a mixture of emotions the article headed up “Thousands set to benefit from redirected £20 million indyref cash” (Dec 20). I thought for a moment that an alternative headline could be “Millions set to lose out in Unionist victory”.

The Scottish Government has of course been under some political pressure to re-allocate this money since the recent fairly predictable decision of the UK Supreme Court. Given that the overall Scottish Government budget is in excess of £50 billion, the £20m was a tiny fraction. However it was a tiny beacon of hope to those of us hoping to live long enough to see Scotland take its place in the world as an independent nation.

There is a degree of irony regarding which pockets some of the £20m will eventually end up in. It appears that some of the fund will be used to directly assist with energy bills. The energy companies will pass some of the money on to the gas suppliers, who will eventually pass it on to their already wealthy, possibly Unionist, shareholders.

The Supreme Court has dashed our hopes and dreams of a referendum in October 2023. The deputy leader of the SNP has, it seems, decided for us that the Scottish Government will not force an early Scottish Parliament election to act as a referendum.

Attention is now to focus on the next UK General Election, where 16- and 17-year-olds will be unable to vote. Calls to Labour voters to “vote Labour to keep the Tories out” will dominate that election. Gordon Brown will be resurrected to vow a Labour UK Government will work hard for Scotland.

I begin to wonder if the SNP’s “emergency” conference will decide to wait for the next scheduled Scottish Parliament elections before making any move in the direction of a referendum. Those elections are a long time away. A very long time, several winters away, for those in our land who sit today in cold homes and with hungry children.

Brian Lawson
Paisley

FOLLOWING on from the piece by Xander Elliards in The National concerning Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the “Earl of Shrewsbury” (Hereditary peer breaks rules to make £57k from his Lords seat, thenational.scot, Dec 19).

Not for the first time in the history of the second-largest unelected legislative body in the world has its honesty, integrity and usefulness been questioned.

Of what use is that house of the dammed? What despotic ritual requires its existence? Who benefits from the money-sucking vampires?

The short answers are none, the unelected head of state, and their heirs!

It would now be wonderful for a Unionist to pop up and defend those rancid, corrupt and morally bankrupt throwbacks to imperialism, but I doubt if any will.

The time has come to end the Union because I am convinced what we hear about is only the tip of a very large syndicate of practices. Practices that in most jobs would see the person fired and investigated by the police anti-corruption unit.

However the waters of the North Atlantic have kept the tide of change from reaching our shores. Our pinnacle of rock sits in unchanging waters, depleted of nutrients, devoid of evolutionary drive, and sluggish in changeable circumstances. It is as if a raft of putrid organic materials sits atop this archipelago and suppresses the exchange of ideas required to keep UKplc a viable entity. We quite literally are drowning in the putrefying mess created by a system that should never have survived into the 1900s, never mind surviving unto the 2020s. There is only one sensible future for Scotland and that is independence.

Cliff Purvis
Veterans for Scottish Independence 2.0/SNP Armed Forces and Veterans