WHO is Viceroy Murray kidding when he boasts that “Labour will lift people out of poverty – again”?

He cites the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s most recent report on poverty in Scotland, which makes me wonder if he’s even read it: “It [UK government] still holds the majority of the responsibility for the social security system and while many of its weaknesses pre-date the current government, in its manifesto the Labour Party (at a UK level) committed to ‘reviewing Universal Credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty’. There is much to do for the new UK Government to keep up its end of the social contract in Scotland.”

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The report recommends the UK “remove the benefit cap and two-child limit,” neither of which Starmer will do. 2000 families in Scotland are impacted by the former, which the Scottish administration has tried to alleviate through discretionary housing payments. Removing the two-child limit would lift 10,000 kids out of poverty.

The report recommends other policy changes only the UK can make and stresses that these are MINIMAL. It begs the UK Government to rebuild the tattered social contract and praises the Scottish administration: “The introduction of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) and the reforms to how disability benefits are delivered show initial steps to an improved system ... we predict that the SCP would reduce child poverty in Scotland by around 4% between 2020-23 and 2024-25.”

It’s a reason Scotland’s child poverty rate (24%) is lower than those of England (31%) and Wales (28%).

The UK state is failing because it’s failing its people and most egregiously, its children. The Viceroy’s English Labour party, which Danny Dorling says “lost its soul” in the late 90s, is in bed with its corporate donors, so will do nothing to alter the trajectory of this failing state.

Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh

I RESPECT Calum Hodgson’s passion (SNP can’t claim to be climate leaders with any action, Oct 10) but it is an odd piece for a number of reasons.

He details the history of the SNP setting world-leading climate targets under one First Minister and abandoning them under a second (when they had failed to meet nine of the 13 set out), and notes concern about a third.

Believe me, I was horrified by the decision. But abandoning targets you aren’t going to meet does seem to be relatively sensible. Pretending all will be fine and just barrelling on seems remarkably irresponsible in the midst of a global climate crisis.

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However, the bit where I really part ways with Hodgson is when he moves on to solutions. He says that “if the SNP want to regain credibility” they need to be honest that what’s needed is “a wealth tax, introduced at UK level”.

Now, I’m just going to let that one sit for a while and fester.

He notes that the SNP “voted at last month’s conference in favour of a wealth tax”, so he knows the party agrees with him. But, and this may come as a shock to Hodgson, the SNP have got nine – nine – Members of the UK Parliament. Their chances of introducing a wealth tax from Westminster when the ruling Labour Party do not seem well disposed to redistributing income or wealth anywhere but into their leader’s suits or eyewear are slim to hee haw, I’d have thought.

There are huge issues with the Scottish Government and the execution of our move as a nation to net zero. Having campaigners pop up with pie-in-the-sky policies which can not be implemented moves us not a jot forward.

Peter Newman
Edderton

LIBERAL Democrat MP Jamie Stone’s latest instalment in alternative reality arrived in the form of his latest Facebook video.

A short break in Ireland allowed him to ponder the difference between the quality of remote rural roads in Eire as opposed to in his own constituency.

You know, the one he’s been “fighting for” as councillor, MSP and MP for 30 years at the taxpayers’ expense.

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In the missive he ponders why, if Ireland can do it, cannot the Scottish Government?

Well, Jamie, let me give a couple of obvious pointers:

Firstly, the Irish people didn’t get yanked out of the world’s richest trading block against the wishes of two-thirds of its population.

Secondly, the Republic of Ireland didn’t have a party in government that was allergic to principles and sycophantically traded its reputation, and the good of the country, to midwife austerity for index-linked pensions and ministerial red boxes.

Thirdly, Ireland is free to invest in infrastructure because it has been allowed to turn itself into an international base for tech companies, which Scotland is forbidden from doing because it doesn’t control its own tax status nor have control of almost any of the necessary fiscal levers, as those are reserved to Westminster.

We live in a world blighted by lies, spin, alternative facts and distorted realities.

LibDems are not only not helping when stalwart members post content like this, they are fundamentally placing themselves at the heart of the problem.

It is no wonder Nigel Farage wants to model Reform UK on them.

Stone’s party is nothing now but Reform UK in tweeds. A posh-voiced refuge for Tories too chicken to have the courage of their convictions, hoodwinking the electorate with platitudes and disingenuous rhetoric about tarmac they never helped to lay.

Peter Newman
Edderton