CAN someone tell Douglas Ross that I for one – and there are many others who think likewise – am delighted to see independence give top priority in Tuesday's Holyrood agenda (Raging Ross rages as Holyrood will begin year with indy debate, Jan 6)?
I started work nearly 60 years ago and have paid my taxes all these years and National Insurance until I retired. I’m on two NHS waiting lists, one for a cataract operation, the other for knee replacement operations. I’d hoped they would be done long before now but events have prevented it.
As long as we’re under Westminster’s power, I don’t see anything getting better. It’s Westminster that give Holyrood their budget figure and they are legally bound not to go into deficit.
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Like for many, my largest bill is fuel. We’re an energy-rich country but it’s Westminster that holds the purse strings. In Scotland we pay more for our electricity than those in London.
It’s only when we gain independence that any of that can be changed. We’re short-charged by Westminster. Don’t let Mr Ross off the hook. He doesn’t care what happens in Scotland as long as his Tory friends have control.
Only we can change that.
Catriona Grigg
Embo
“PARLIAMENT is back on Tuesday so surely we will be having a meaningful debate on supporting our NHS, our doctors and nurses, our paramedics, staff across the service and delivering for patients,” said Douglas Ross.
Why is he not telling his boss in England to have a meaningful debate on supporting the English NHS, their doctors and their nurses, and their paramedics, staff across the service and delivering for patients with the NHS unions in England instead of ignoring them in hope they go away?
Alistair Waddell
via thenational.scot
I DISAGREE with Hugh Noble of Appin (Letters, Jan 8) about his assumption that the Westminster government may have the power to dissolve the Holyrood parliament, for whatever reason pertaining to Scotland’s independence cause.
The 1707 union of Scotland and England was voluntary, a partnership between two separate countries and nations.
The original parliament of Scotland (or “Estates of Scotland”) was the national law-maker of the independent kingdom of Scotland. It existed from the early 13th century until 1707, when both kingdoms of Scotland and England came together through the signing of the Acts of Union to form the new “Kingdom” of Great Britain. The result of this was that both parliaments of England and Scotland were closed down and a new parliament of Great Britain was created at Westminster in London.
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On May 12 1999 Winnie Ewing famously reconvened the Scottish Parliament for the first time in 292 years. Dr Ewing became an SNP MSP in the first Holyrood elections. She was also the first Scottish female to be elected into the Westminster Parliament.
On July 1 1999, the Scottish Parliament was officially re-opened by Her Majesty The Queen and received its full law-making powers. The Scottish Parliament normally met in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh until the new parliament building was created.
The word here is “reconvened”, meaning that the Scottish Parliament, although shut down for 292 years, was never extinguished. It remains today, as it did all those years ago, as the legitimate parliament of Scotland.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
THANK goodness Emma Roddick has defended the Inverness primary school that has been targeted by far-right groups like the Scottish Family Party for trying to make their school safe and inclusive (MSP defends school over sexuality and gender survey, Jan 6). In October last year a Glasgow primary school was targeted by racists and this
was rightly called out by those at the top of Scottish education and even the First Minister herself. Other than Miss Roddick, it has been deafening silence from the Scottish Government.
The Scottish Government have been world-leading on LGBT-inclusive education and this is something for our country to be proud of. Why then is it so hard for the government to condemn the anti-LGBT rhetoric of groups like the Scottish Family Party, especially when it results in the targeting of a primary school?
This is the same party who are reportedly planning a protest against the Sandyford clinic and suggested the First Minister would have supported buffer zones around Auschwitz. Not an organisation that most people would proudly align themselves with.
Schools should be places of acceptance where all children and their families feel welcome. I hope the government continue to support LGBT young people and their teachers and this must include the categorical condemnation of LGBT-phobic abuse.
Gemma Clark
Johnstone
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