I WAS appalled but not surprised to hear the unelected Foreign Secretary David Cameron complain about the illegal attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, moaning that this would increase costs for goods travelling to Britain.

Of course, this is the same unelected Foreign Secretary who is currently providing political cover for the illegal war crimes of the terror state of Israel. The attacks in the Red Sea would likely cease as soon as Israel stopped its ongoing genocide of the Palestinians.

Yet Cameron meekly falls in line with US policy to support Israel at all costs – arming this country to the teeth so that it can continue in its use of banned weapons such as phosphorus flares or continually bombing hospitals, public buildings, schools and refugee camps with the sole intention of killing as many Palestinians as possible.

It’s clear Western political leaders, including Sunak, Cameron, Starmer and Genocide Joe Biden, aren’t interested in saving lives but only in creating havoc in the Middle East

Why is Israel allowed to attack all its neighbours without any sanctions placed against it? Why are we treating Russia so differently from Israel, when Israel has occupied Palestinian land since the 1940s?

Surely Israel is committing more atrocities than Russia, yet Western political leaders and the mainstream press are not just ignoring it but actually helping arm Israel?

If the political leaders won’t do anything then it’s up to the public to boycott anything and everything from Israel – and those companies that support it. It worked against South Africa – it’s now time to apply greater public pressure against Israel and its supporters.

Cllr Kenny MacLaren

Paisley

As I am fortunate enough to live in Dundee, I have easy access to the V&A and was in the other day at the section of the Scottish gallery about the 7:84 Theatre Company and its great touring show of the early 1970s, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil.

A sensation at the time, and a revelation for many, “7% of the people own 84% of our land” was the initial prompt for many people of my generation – who were never taught Scottish history in school, and learned under a big map of the world, largely coloured red – to think differently about our country, Scotland, and where it was at.

Since that time the Scottish independence movement has grown exponentially, with its early impetus fuelled to a large extent by that show.

But sadly the premise of the theatre company’s name, that 84% of Scotland’s land is owned by a tiny percentage of the people, has not changed much in the 50 years since. Our land is still the plaything of the rich, 50 years and still they rule the roost!

According to Wikipedia, 65 countries have left the British Empire, yet a huge proportion of Scotland, potentially a prosperous and progressive country, is still a prisoner of its past.

In 50 years a lot has changed in Scotland, but a lot more has not. The 7% still have most of Scotland by the short and curlies, profiting hugely from Scotland’s natural resources and holding back development and community initiative.

At about the same time as the Cheviot, Scottish academic and thinker Tom Nairn suggested that Scotland would never be free “until the last minister was strangled with the last copy of the Sunday Post” – metaphorically, of course.

In the sense that Mr Nairn suggested, that has come to pass, as neither the church nor the Sunday Post carry the same clout as they did then. But surely the next step, to seriously challenge the 7:84, is now long overdue.

Les Mackay

Dundee

Child homelessness has hit an all-time high in the failing UK. One in 84 children don’t have a home and many are forced to stay in freezing shipping containers, overcrowded B&Bs and unsecured premises without locks. Shelter reported that the number of homeless people in England rose 14% last year.

One in 10 of England’s largest councils is nearing bankruptcy due to inflation, inadequate central government funding and more children being taken into care.

They’re spending between a fifth and half of their available resources to cope with the crisis because of soaring private rents and not enough social housing. Those local authorities that have sold off their council houses are in worse shape because they have no Housing Revenue Account (HRA) to tap into. Those with HRAs are eating into their reserves in order to buy properties for homeless families.

Despite the financial constraints London has imposed on its Scottish colony, Scotland has done more to alleviate homelessness than the rest of the UK. Scotland’s core homelessness rate is half that of England’s.

The Scottish Government increased the supply of social housing and ended the priority need test a decade ago to reduce rough sleeping. It published the UK’s first homelessness action plan and quickly rehoused the homeless into safe and settled accommodation.

But Scotland needs to do more than mitigate the impacts of UK austerity, rooted in an ideology that opposes the state in any form because it sees it as crowding out opportunities for private profiteering. It needs control over its substantial resources, the ability to create money via its central bank and to invest in its people. It needs to end the Union.

Leah Gunn Barrett

Edinburgh

Regarding the contribution from Jim Robin (Letters, Jan 4), there may be an age gap thing going on here. I’ll be 77 at the end of this month. When being educated in primary school, I was definitely told “it’s rooves and hooves” for the appropriate plural.

This seems to have changed with the passing years, though it still grates when I hear knifes instead of knives. Maybe The National should start a Pedants’ Corner if Private Eye hasn’t copyrighted it.

Barry Stewart

Blantyre