DR Gerald Edwards (Letters, April 29) looks at life through rose-tinted spectacles if he believes that Boris Johnson has pretty effectively saved the United Kingdom from the true ravages of coronavirus both in health and economic terms . Credit where it is due, the immunisation programme has been a success and all should acknowledge this. But the fight against Covid has involved much more than a successful immunisation scheme and overall has been handled extremely badly. At the beginning of what was to turn out to be a pandemic the Prime Minister refused to wear a face mask, insisted on shaking hands despite being asked not to do so and he mocked social distancing. The short-term result was an outbreak in Downing Street circles which nearly claimed his life, but his disdain for precautionary measures set an example that was followed throughout the country. Then there was the journey north by infected senior adviser Dominic Cummings, supported by Mr Johnson, which seriously w
Letters: Cynical aspects to Freeman s admission of care home mistakes
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Letters: Sturgeon needs to learn humility and admit mistakes
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I READ the article by London-dwelling George Foulkes ( Devolution should change to work for whole of UK , The Herald, March 5) with some interest. I wonder if he did the same before submitting it. Devolution in Scotland and Wales is working reasonably well, but is still not satisfying for most people. Northern Ireland has to contend with the consequences of a UK Government which put Brexit ahead of its constitutional duties. In Scotland our public services tend to be better staffed and remunerated than in England: our waiting times statistics much better: private provision (started in England by Labour’s Market Testing) largely squeezed out. There is little demand to return police and fire services to a regional level: would Lord Foulkes dismantle the Met for borough control?
IT is little surprise that the announcement by the UK Government that it is to commit to spending millions across Scotland by working directly with local authorities has drawn the ire of the SNP ( Infrastructure investment plan for Scotland sparks SNP ‘power grab’ claims , The Herald, February 25). Kirsten Oswald’s po-faced comment that it represents a power grab by Westminster is entirely predictable; the largesse shown by the UK Government does not fit the SNP narrative that the Tories are evil, and that the SNP is Scotland, and therefore only it can disburse funds. Too often in recent years, successive UK Governments have deserted the political stage in Scotland, leaving it to local politicians to set the narrative. This is fine where the party in power locally is not one that is ideologically driven to break up the Union, meaning that it can rarely work harmoniously with the UK Government lest the independence narrative, woven over many years, is damaged.