AT last, a very small spark of decency from D Ross. It is very small and hedged about with conditions. He will resign as an MSP if he is elected to Westminster, so he says. But he is a Tory, so how can anyone believe him?
Anyway, there is no guarantee of him being elected. That is down to the folk of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, of whom I am one, and guess what – he will not be getting my vote. I hope that there are many more like me.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross to resign as Scottish Tory leader after General Election
It now seems that even his Holyrood colleagues are not pleased with him so perhaps that might be the reason for his resignation ... who knows? Or even, who cares?
Monica Wells
Deskford, Moray
DOUGLAS Ross is hoping to make his escape back to Westminster as its rats set about sinking the Holyrood Parliament.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
STAN Grodynski (Letters, Jun 10) claims the SNP winning the largest number of Scottish seats will somehow be a result that takes Scotland “a significant step forward on the road to independence”. The SNP won 56 Westminster seats back in 2015 and 48 seats in 2019 but sadly I don’t remember that taking us a significant step forward. Maybe I missed it.
Gaining the “largest” number of seats could imply a number retained in the mid twenties and a loss of possibly 25 seats – hardly a significant step forward. Some current opinion polls suggest that a giant step back to around 1974 levels of support, maybe retaining 11 MPs, is on the cards. That will not be the fault of the contents of the letters page of the National but the policy decisions of the SNP leadership.
READ MORE: Tory candidate set to replace Douglas Ross as MSP lives in London
Sadly Stan is typical of the head-in-the-sand attitude to, and by, the SNP that has caused it to lose half its membership as well as possibly now half of its support in the past decade.
Having retired as SNP councillor in 2017, after 25 years in the job, I have no current “political ambitions” to further at the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections. The last time I looked at a calendar we were not living in the 1984 of George Orwell. The letters page of The National provides a welcome forum to express some serious doubts as to the current ability of the SNP to further both its original aims and those of the wider independence movement.
The four million voters of Scotland will decide its fate on July 4. I await their verdict. Let’s just wait and see.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
MR Grodynski in Monday’s letters page continues his blinkered approach to Scottish politics by talking about possible significant steps forward by the SNP while criticising anyone who dares to raise genuine policy concerns.
SNP MP Stephen Flynn’s recent cunning plan to introduce a pointless and possibly misleading law to somehow, as he sees it, prevent privatisation of the NHS in Scotland only served to allow Unionists to shine a very bright light on the fact that since January 2023 the SNP government has spent £850 million in contract awards to private companies, many based in England, but others as far afield as Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. They involve core functions such as diagnostics, testing, X-ray assessments and treatments, as well as spend on private agency staff, collection and delivery of products and the operation of digital platforms. It doesn’t even include the cost of buying medicines.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross faces calls to quit as MSP amid resignation row
One £30m contract was awarded to a consortium of firms – including one based in Denmark and another in the Netherlands – to assess X-rays and other scans on behalf of Scotland’s NHS. German firm Fresenius Medical Care has been awarded a £7m contract to provide at-home dialysis for patients. One company in Harlow, Essex, was awarded a £1.9m contract to dispense blood coagulants to homes across Scotland, while £665,000 has been put aside to pay Cambridge medics to collect and test oesophageal cells to help the NHS diagnose for certain cancers. A firm in Cambridge was handed a £3.5m contract to give Scots access to online therapy, while screening for dermatological complaints will now be done online by Oxford clinicians for £561,000.
It is impossible to legislate away the involvement of private medical companies in Scotland. They will exist and continue to expand until the Scottish health service can meet patient demand in reasonable waiting times.
Mr Grodynski needs to spend more time looking at both sides of the political coin before just heaping praise on the SNP while dismissing its critics in the name of party unity.
Dr Iain Evans
Edinburgh
WHEN will “leaders” ever learn that “I apologise” is so much weaker than saying “I am sorry”?
I suspect because they are only saying it as a result of pressure, not due to any genuine sense of regret about their behaviour and taking ownership of it. Like so much of what comes out of their mouths, it is utterly meaningless and in many cases actually makes things worse as it is so blatantly obvious that they don’t “get it” or mean it.
And full marks to the GP who yelled at Rishi Sunk for his policies forcing her, and thousands of other GPs, into redundancy. There was the voice of passionate truth and he was left speechless – unrehearsed, no plants, just confronted by raw rage, and he had nothing to say. it spoke volumes.
Where Is Elton John when we need him?
Jenny Pearson
Edinburgh
READING Monday’s article quoting Samantha Kane about pylons near her castle and the perceived threat to her business from them, I could not help but compare her ramblings to those of one Donald Trump as regards the wind farm to be built near his golf course in Aberdeen. I think there’s perhaps more than a little bit of nimbysm at play here.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
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