Sir,- I applaud Dr John Cameron (July 23) when he questions the morality of prosecuting the 94-year-old former member of the Waffen SS who had been employed at Auschwitz concentration camp.
It is perhaps particularly apposite that a minster of the Kirk, albeit a retired one, should do so and in these difficult times we are in sore need of an arbiter on the matter of morals.
Given that Dr Cameron is an ardent and vocal supporter of this Tory Government, may I ask his opinion of the morality of the Government imposing further hardship on the poorest and least able in our society.
Morality as well as charity should begin at home, in this case, Dr Cameron’s home and the St Andrews food bank states that the amount of food parcels given out has tripled since last August.
As the manager has stated: “We’ve been getting more people that are actually in work but are not able to make ends meet. Food prices have gone up 30% in five years and energy bills have gone up 37% in three, but wages and benefits have remained stagnant.
Welfare payments have only increased by 1%. It used to be people who had their benefits delayed or stopped or had a change of circumstance.we’re now seeing more people who are in work but not able to make ends meet.”
My own sense of morality tells me that it is wrong that the section of our society which was entirely blameless for the financial collapse in our country should be now punished in this way, while those who were responsible are even now being rewarded with multi-million pound bonuses.
Of course, I am not a Tory and it may be that my morality lacks the required selectivity needed to pick and mix.
George White. 2 Cupar Road, Auchtermuchty.
Where are promised jobs?
Sir,- I am speechless. There is a new planning application for two more gigantic turbines at Methil when the current Samsung Industries one has cost £6 million of taxpayers’ money.
For weeks it has been missing half of one arm, a sick parody at the expense of people locally, who were promised much by the SNP government.
They promised 500 jobs but it created only 20 jobs. That’s £300,000 per job.
Now another speculator has arrived on the scene and will expect even more public money.
Have the Scottish Government never heard Einstein’s definition of insanity which is: “If you keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.”
It is apparently impossible to get serious investment in our dead high streets or business start-up support in deprived areas like Levenmouth, local employability training or 21st Century connectivity in rural parts of Fife.
Meanwhile, fuel poverty is at record levels in Fife.
This new plan for turbines in Methil will add more families to the list of those who have a choice to make, eat or freeze.
To paraphrase The Proclaimers, Methil: no more turbines.
Susan Fleming. East Gilston Mains, Leven.
Travellers are not to blame
Sir, – Many people have complained about Travellers’ camps and have accused them of leaving litter.
But if you walk along the side of roads you will see these are strewn with litter.
Is it the Travelling people driving around throwing litter on the verges or is it the resident population?
In this day and age, one would think there would be more tolerance of other people’s ways of life.
Roy McIntosh. 9 Bankweel Road, Anstruther.
Resist bid to control BBC
Sir, – Nicola Sturgeon has revived her attempt to bring the BBC under Holyrood control.
Were she successful, an even greater focus on Scottish issues on the BBC to the exclusion of other parts of the United Kingdom would be the result.
Inevitably, political coverage would concentrate on Holyrood where the SNP holds power rather than the Palace of Westminster where it clearly does not.
As we all know, Ms Sturgeon’s driving ambition is to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK.
A BBC that is parochial and inward-looking would assist her objective.
Of even greater concern to those of us who support free speech, is whether the SNP’s media savvy hierarchy would be able to resist hands-on control of news coverage.
It is imperative that Westminster refuses Sturgeon’s latest power-grabbing demands and ensures that we in Scotland continue to benefit from broad and diverse BBC programming, devoid of state editorial control.
Martin Redfern. 4 Royal Circus, Edinburgh.
Energy policy wrecking UK
Sir, – Tata are laying off skilled men at their Rotherham steel works due to high UK electricity costs.
Here we are, the pioneers of nuclear energy, unable to generate cheap power.
The anti-business and anti-capitalist greens, have reduced us to windmills and wood burning for our expensive electricity, while the SNP destroys our landscape with windmills, but will not allow fracking.
They are succeeding in their real objective, which is to wreck our country.
Malcolm Parkin. 15 Gamekeepers Road, Kinnesswood, Kinross.
Respect has to be earned
Sir, – Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP MPs at Westminster whinge that the Westminster Government does not show them enough respect.
Respect has to be earned by the manner in which you comport yourself in actions, deeds and words as well as your achievements.
In all these areas the SNP have fallen woefully short of acceptable standards. They have proven themselves to be unprincipled, duplicitous and opportunistic. For years they have ranted on about Tory snobs, Eton toffs, Westminster posh boys and Hooray Henry’s. I cannot recall
any similar name calling coming back from Westminster.
Just imagine the furore if, just once, David Cameron were to call them a bunch of jumped-up Jocks.
The SNP would do well to remember wise sayings such as: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”, and: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Donald Lewis. Pine Cottage, Beech Hill, Gifford.
Youth need real experience
Sir,- I am not sure what planet your columnist Jennifer Dempsie is living on.
If her concern is to improve the job prospects and lifestyles of Scottish people then she should be lobbying her SNP leaders to get a business plan together to improve education and create apprenticeships which, by the way, should be mandatory.
Children leaving schools with no skills due to lack of parental guidance and overly-liberal freedom of choice simply consigns them to a poor-quality of future life and likely dependence on welfare.
The other thing that should happen is encouragement to graduates to get some experience of the world outside of Scotland.
Too many of our kids live in a bubble of conceptualism with no real experience of how the rest of the world lives and works.
They are, therefore, susceptible to all the leftist brainwashing promulgated by Labour and lately the SNP which creates unfounded grievances and a lack of will towards self-improvement.
We are still waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to produce her grand plan ahead of the Holyrood elections and which hopefully will be an improvement on the laughable White Paper issued prior to the referendum which has never been seen since.
Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm, Anstruther.
SNP can learn a lot from others
Sir, – One can only welcome the decision the SNP has made to engage with civic groups in the rest of the UK.
While Angus Robertson MP may feel that these civic groups have a lot to learn from the SNP and its “progressive” politics, I earnestly hope the relationship is two-way.
In particular, I hope that the SNP will learn how to close the attainment gap, fund local authorities, stem the fall in literacy, meet waiting-time targets, manage a police force and run a university system without the need to cut the grants for the poorest students.
Dr Scott Arthur. 27 Buckstone Gardens, Edinburgh.
Tolerance by secularists
Sir, – I expected the customary fire and brimstone from the Free Church minister David Robertson over the Dundee foodbank and its discriminatory employment policies. But as usual he is wrong on many points.
It would be illegal for secularists to discriminate in a similar vein as he suggests, quite apart from the fact that many Christians, Muslims and Jews also consider themselves to be secular.
I am sure we would select the best candidate in any case. After all, the vulnerable deserve better than to be denied the best on dubious grounds. It speaks volumes that it is religious people, not secularists, who demand exemptions from equality legislation.
Second, my organisation is not a charity and is funded by member subscriptions, nor do we run a food bank although our members donate to them.
The Christian Institute, a campaigning organisation as is mine, doesn’t run a food bank either but it does exploit the tax advantage of charity status to promote Christianity. Whose motives are more pure?
Third, Mr Robertson says we spend our time attacking Christians who live out their faith while evidently it is fine for him to spend his time attacking us.
We support the rights of religious people to live out their faith, but where that impinges upon the rights of others we act.
We campaign against people and groups, be they atheist or religious, who live out their beliefs or lack of them by demanding the right to discriminate unfairly in employment and education, or who campaign to curtail or remove the human rights of vulnerable groups, or to practise prejudice.
Mr Robertson falls into all thosecategories.
Alistair McBay. National Secular Society, 5 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh.