Readers' letters: Three reasons to be cheerful from this week's headlines

Second, those whose anxieties strayed into a fear of personal persecution would be comforted by the Scottish Government’s stance against hate crime, although disconcerted by the Conservatives’ opposition.

Third, council tax increases were announced across England and Wales ranging from five-ten per cent. Of course, such tax increases do not apply here, thanks to the Scottish Government. Hopefully, preparations are being made for the “mass exodus” northwards of households and businesses which must surely follow.

Robert Farquharson, Edinburgh

Dystopian vision

Imagine a country where the police only investigate muggings and burglary if it is an open-and-shut case, and where they ignore most theft including shoplifting, but where they zealously investigate what you say, even in your own home, and even if it not a crime at all. Oh, and where you can report a “hate crime”in a sex shop. Dystopian science fiction? No, Scotland next month.

Police Scotland are on record that if there are not clear leads, then they are not going to investigate a great many crimes. Also, for some time they have been entirely uninterested in fighting shoplifting.

Now with the Hate Crime Act coming into force on 1 April, Police Scotland say they will investigate every hate crime and record it, even if it is not a crime at all. And yes that includes what you say in your own home.

And now we know that from a recently deleted entry on their website that Police Scotland view young working class white men with a particular suspicion, because they may be harbouring ideas of ‘white-entitlement’.

Nothing less than repealing the Hate Crime Act and police officers being directed to focus on real physical crimes will do.

Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife

Active informers

Activating the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act should make every Scot in Scotland more than uneasy.

Yousaf’s Hate Law is more in keeping with the the French Revolution, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, each of which encouraged informers within and outwith families and friends, as this legislation could do in Scotland.

Although drafted three years ago, this law is seriously divisive. Putting the Act into practice puts Police Scotland in an invidious position.

All this begs the question: Should Humza Yousaf’s threat to “wipe the Tories off the map” be considered a hate crime?

Doug Morrison, Cranbrook Kent

Russell’s words

The eminent mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, with regard to fascism: “First, they fascinate the fools. Then they muzzle the intelligent.”

Earl Russell’s words have a special resonance in the spring of 2024, with regard to the SNP’s Hate Crime Act and its imminent passage into law in Scotland.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

The real extremists

It never ceases to amaze that many of those who appear totally accepting of the non-constitutional status quo often seem oblivious to what appears to be going on in the rest of the UK. With the UK Government’s “Rwanda” and “Extremism” bills soon to hit the statute book there is on the horizon a much greater threat to human rights and “freedom of speech” than the passing of the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime Bill (overwhelmingly backed by MSP’s across parties in March 2021 by 82 votes to 32).

To infer that this latter bill, which extends the Public Order Act of 1986 to cover all minorities, will simplistically lead to Police Scotland having to investigate “complaints about feeling offended” (Sally Gordon-Walker, Letters, 22 March) is not only to grossly misrepresent the bill but to trivialise the public’s increasing concern around actions such as the UK Government’s creation of the “hostile environment” and inflammatory language such as that recently employed by Suella Braverman. The statement that with the enforcement of the 2021 bill next month “Scotland will resemble Hitler’s Germany” is frankly contemptible.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Forlorn hope

Kate Forbes has broken cover to attack Humza Yousaf’s handling of Scottish affairs.

Mr Yousaf’s popularity, such as it is, will decline even more when the first case of his Hate Crime Act comes to the public’s attention.

Ms Forbes is positioning herself to take over but she has problems too. She has voted with the Scottish Government at Holyrood, most notably with regard to the very unpopular Scottish Budget. This Budget was near universally accepted as a disaster. Ms Forbes approved it.

Replacing Mr Yousaf with Ms Forbes would be a forlorn attempt to save the SNP ship even if she removed the Greens from power. This would simply add to the stresses upon the SNP. A meltdown in Scottish politics approaches.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Wanted: workers

Brexit has stripped the UK workforce of willing and educated Europeans.I propose that refugees willing to enter Britain should be integrated into the economy.

That would achieve something for Britain. Fantasies about border control and deportation are achieving nothing except fatal accidents at sea.

Real leaders would lead instead of doing harm and wrong to appease squalid and hostile sentiments.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland

Granny’s wisdom

My understanding is that the default position of the SNP is to lay the blame for any ill, no matter how slight, at the door of the Westminster Parliament.

This normal order of the universe was called into question by Marion Fellows who was “disappointed” that the very same Westminster Parliament had respected the separate legal system and the fact Scottish Postmasters were prosecuted in Scotland and not included them in The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill (Scotsman, 21 March).

My old grandmother used to tell me, when I was a small boy, you can’t have your cake and your ha’penny. I feel she would remind Ms Fellows that the currency may have changed but sentiment certainly has not.

John Bromhall, Edinburgh

Poverty gap

According to the Child Poverty Action Group, child poverty is stable in Scotland but rising in the rest of the UK and that it expected to see child poverty rates in Scotland falling as the latest data does not “yet include the full impact of the roll out of the Scottish Child Payment and its increase to £25 per week in November 2022”.

Under successive Westminster governments, child poverty in the UK is much worse than in Denmark, Finland, Ireland or Norway and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report in late January highlighted that “Child poverty rates in Scotland (24 per cent) remain much lower than those in England (31 per cent) and Wales (28 per cent)”.

At the same time as the Scottish Child Payment was doubled the Tory government cut Universal Credit by the same amount while, in keeping with their new-found Thatcherite policies, Labour say that they will maintain the two-child benefit cap.

Before the SNP came to power, the ten poorest areas in the UK were in Scotland. Now, the 20 poorest areas in the UK are all in England. Also, under the SNP, Scotland has continued the trend of outperforming the rest of the UK in delivering affordable housing by building 13.9 homes per 10,000 population last year, compared with only eight in Wales and 9.7 in England.

Fuel poverty is not helped by the fact that, despite Scotland having vast surplus energy resources, our consumers continue to pay the highest daily energy standing charges in the UK while our renewable industries pay the highest grid connection charges in Europe, all thanks to Westminster’s failed energy polices.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Hole story

I have received an invitation from a company which seems to be a tie-in with the City of Edinburgh suggesting that I sponsor a roundabout. The organisation suggests that my company could get excellent exposure to all the cars going round the roundabout if I put my company’s name there. This would come at a price, however.

However, thinking laterally, just think how much more money the council could make if they sold cheaper signs on every pothole in Edinburgh. I would guess that there are a couple of hundred in my street alone. Multiply that out by every street in the city and they could afford to build a new tram scheme to Penicuik, or even Newcastle.

If they stretched their imaginations, they could maybe even fill in the potholes and forget about spending money on trams and plaques telling historicalporkies!

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

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