Enacting this covenant can spare us from plague of neoliberalism

After decades of tax and spending cuts, privatisation and deregulation, the UK’s in a tailspin. The economy is moribund. Inequality is epic. The middle class is disappearing. Poverty is soaring. Employment is precarious. Pensions are miserly. Housing is unaffordable. Public health is worsening. Children are miserable. Life expectancy is falling.

Markets don’t self-regulate; deregulation hasn’t resulted in more competition or efficiency but in monopoly power. Corporate monopolies have captured the political elites and regulatory agencies who make more rules that emasculate the state.

The Government has outsourced its responsibility to provide people with basic necessities – healthcare, housing, education, transport, energy – to corporations whose only motivation is profit.

Starmer is right – things can only get worse. He and Reeves repeatedly signalled that they had no intention of changing course despite their empty slogan.

Scotland’s devolved administration claims it has no choice but to go along with Westminster. That’s wrong. Holyrood could enact the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by the UK in 1976, into Scots law, giving the Scottish People political rights with which to exercise their sovereign power.

The Scotland Act 1998 allows Holyrood to choose how to implement and protect international human rights obligations to which the UK is a party. At the recent SNP conference, the First Minister said that “taking decisions in Scotland for Scotland … is the key to unlocking a better future for the people who choose to live here”. If he’s serious, he’d enact ICCPR.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh

THE House of Lords is a place where the past rests and the proposals for the future are discussed.

The noble lords are requested to peruse the bills, of the lower house, which the House of Commons wishes to enact for correctness, to prevent unintended consequences.

In view of the current war in Gaza and West Bank areas of Palestine, it caught my attention that there is a Holocaust Memorial Bill being discussed by the Lords. It has presumably been passed by the Commons.

The noble Lord Strathcarron, a hereditary peer from Inverness, I believe was caustic in his condemnation of the plan. It initially was costed at £21 million and was refreshed at £81m. It is nine years late without a brick laid, similar to the Garden Bridge across the Thames, a £20m Boris Johnson brain fart.

With no oversight or input from the local populace on the location choice, it has been selected as Victoria Tower Gardens, close to the Palace of Westminster – well really “jist doon the block, frae the Commons”.

Strathcarron advised the plan suffers from “mission creep” in that other “genocide” events are being tacked on to this memorial.

He was critical of the people who do not know the correct definition of genocide and suggested that the location would attract more attention and hence disruption to the locals living in the area, and parliamentarians doing their business.

Watching, hearing and reading about the military actions currently taking place – be it Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar and let’s not forget our friends in Ukraine – it is very understandable that people who want a change in government thinking would naturally coalesce to this memorial, so what better place for protesters than the City of Westminster?

I wish we didn’t need a Holocaust Memorial, but if we do, we must plant it where the decisions are made, and that is the Westminster Parliament.
Alistair Ballantyne
Angus

AS an economist, I have been astonished by the power of the UK media to convince millions of people that a government, which has its own currency, and central bank, can run out of money, and needs to cut back on public spending. This big lie is pure nonsense, but it can be used to enable a government to redistribute income, even if total income is falling.

Margaret Thatcher, who knew nothing about economics, managed to find an excellent way to help spread this false idea, when she claimed that “every housewife knows that she can’t spend more than her income”. Well, that is true, in general, for a housewife on a fixed monthly income, but it does not relate in any way to government expenditure.

It is basically true about a housewife who has a fixed monthly income because she does not spend a significant part of that income on investment. However, if for example she saved £50 per month in savings for the annual holidays, and her breadwinner husband spent £40 per week on a bus to work, what if she invested the £50 one week on a second-hand bike so that her husband could bike to work and save the £40 each month? Such investment would pay for itself in a short period of time and, as a direct result of her extra spending, in one month her income would increase in every future month.

Government spending is very much like that.

Government is not restricted to the amount of money in circulation, it is not on a fixed income, it creates the amount of money it needs and supplies it to the central bank – the Bank of England, in our case – free of charge.

There is never a case of lack of money, and it is always true that government expenditure can be used to increase future economic growth (wealth) in the country if the government invests wisely. For example, it has been estimated that £1 spent by the UK Government on the NHS can lead to £4 in new economic growth (real wealth).

Austerity is not about growing the economy, that is a lie – austerity is about redistributing wealth from the ordinary people to the super-rich, that is its purpose, even if it leads to smaller total income, as it eventually does.

So, the Labour Government is trying to fool the people when it claims that withholding benefits from children on elderly people will “save the economy” – it will not, indeed it will reduce demand and make the economy worse.
Andy Anderson
Ardrossan

ANDY Anderson’s letters always provide interesting thoughts that often provoke further debate and it is regrettable that Andrew Tickell, or other lawyers among the readers of The National, have not offered informed opinion on Andy’s suggested ways to progress independence that appear to have merit. In the meantime, those less knowledgeable on legal matters, such as myself, must be content with making more simplistic suggestions.

It is no secret that BBC Scotland leads much of the UK mainstream media in finding fault with the SNP Scottish Government (SG) and when comparisons are made with the rest of the UK, it is usually only when the SG can be shown in a poor light. Rarely does BBC Scotland provide comparable statistics by which to measure the performance of the Scottish Government against the Labour Welsh Government.

Instead of relying on a “Rebuttal Unit” (which appears to have been a non-starter), it would seem, especially with a Labour Government also in charge at Westminster, that for the SNP to win the 2026 Holyrood Election, they must aggressively present directly comparable statistics of Scottish and Welsh governments to the Scottish public.

This should be done not only via the Scottish Parliament and First Minister’s Questions, but via advertisements and billboards (utilising crowdfunding for individual projects if necessary).

This will help stimulate informed debate that regrettably will never be fostered by the BBC or most of the UK mainstream media.

Secondly, as many have already commented, there appears to be no obvious reason why either an alternative to the GERS report, or an appropriately qualified report, cannot be compiled by the Scottish Government, if necessary via an independent economist such as Richard Murphy. This, in my opinion, should be a priority for 2025 to at the very least stimulate debate on the many advantages of Scotland determining its own future.

Whether it be a land value tax or annual ground rent, the next Scottish Government Budget should include at least the first tentative steps in moving away from the iniquitous Council Tax towards taxing “wealth”. Of course, the Government’s hands are tied in many respects with regard to directly taxing wealth and no doubt there will be numerous legal, as well as political, obstacles to be confronted and overcome, but the intent will be clear that one way or another the SNP are going to govern in a manner that enables Scotland to independently progress and prosper.

Aiming to eradicate child poverty is an admirable ambition but given the complexities around poverty, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to promptly make significant further progress. The steps outlined above, combined with other positive actions taken by the SG, might not only help bring about an SNP victory in 2026 but potentially, if made quickly and effectively, could create the confidence necessary to make the next Holyrood election a de facto independence referendum. Should the current leadership of the SNP not immediately commit to such tasks seemingly key to increasing support for independence to well beyond 50% then perhaps it is time to step aside and encourage those with the belief, the enthusiasm and the drive to come forward and lead Scotland to independence.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian

DID you know that Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most prolific executioners, a fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship, a country that assassinates its opponents, a country a million miles away from Western values and ideals, is bidding to join the United Nations Human Rights Council? No, it’s not a joke!

A state that hands out death sentences to child defendants and protesters, while lying to the international community about its actions.

Despite Saudi Arabia announcing a royal decree in 2020 that supposedly abolished the death penalty for childhood crimes, they executed child defendant Mustafa al-Darwish the following year.

And today, child defendants remain at risk of execution in the Kingdom. This includes Abdullah al-Derazi, Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Howaiti who were convicted on the basis of torture-extracted “confessions”.

How can a state that has already executed at least 169 people this year be responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights?

Saudi Arabia’s election would undermine global confidence in international institutions created to protect human rights. We can’t let this happen.
B Mckenna
Dumbarton