Sir,– If by “genetics” Gordon Strachan actually meant we just don’t have enough footballers who, from birth, were well fed, well behaved, disciplined and motivated, I think he is spot on.
The problems of Scottish football are a metaphor for Scotland in general.
Our education system is in crisis: 40% of our teachers wanting to leave the profession and citing pupil and parent behaviour as a big reason, and no wonder when there were 600 attacks by pupils on school staff in the North East last year.
Our health, and health system, is in crisis: we have one of the highest obesity rates in the world and five times as many people – 250,000 – with Type 2 diabetes than 50 years ago.
This is almost totally down to poor nutrition.
We have a mental health crisis, especially in the young.
Recently Hibernian manager Neil Lennon described many young footballers as “snowflakes”.
And we have a skills crisis: our politicians (where the biggest lack of skills exists), just like our football managers, are desperate to bring in foreign workers because the local workforce doesn’t want the jobs or isn’t skilled enough.
Things 50 years ago were arguably worse: we smoked a lot more, diets were more frugal and we were poorer.
But we had an education system that was the envy of the world.
In 1967 Celtic won the European Cup, Rangers lost in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup, Kilmarnock were in the semi-final of the Fairs Cup and Scotland famously beat world champions England.
The teams were full of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The current squad has a lot of good players, big and small, well brought up, and they and their manager did their best.
Our society has a lot of good, skilled people.
But to produce a Baxter, Law, Johnstone, Bremner, Logie Baird, Clerk-Maxwell or Watson-Watt requires a bigger pool of talent.
Politicians refuse to face reality for fear of alienating voters.
Two years ago Nicola Sturgeon could walk on water.
If she had spelled out the need for better diet, parenting and work ethic and copied policies from around the world we might be getting somewhere.
The demise of Scottish football is the demise of Scotland.
We have gone soft and no one’s prepared to say it.
The big difference between Scottish players and genetically similar Germans, Lithuanians or Slovenians is not their size it’s their lifestyle, self-discipline and the confidence that gives.
Allan Sutherland.
Willow Row,
Stonehaven.
True state of our health service
Sir,– Here is one example of the state of the National Health Service at the moment.
My wife telephoned her local medical practice to seek a doctor’s appointment only to be told there were no available ones this month.
She was then offered an appointment with the practitioner nurse, but that that would be in two weeks’ time.
At the same time on the news I hear Nicola Sturgeon defend the SNP’s appalling record with the usual coined phrases and platitudes such as a growing elderly population, heavier demands on services, even introducing the fact that, for good measure, they were meeting their target with hospital emergencies, yet carefully avoiding the fact seven out of their set targets were being regularly missed.
However when pressed, she justified this with the fact the targets apparently had been set higher than they might.
Had they had their eye on the ball and not blinkered with the concept of independence they might have come to the conclusion of a continuing breakdown in service delivery years ago, and put appropriate planning and funding in to counteract this.
No excuses or explanations can ameliorate the fact the NHS has been seriously underfunded.
However there has been no parallel shortage in funding the independence campaign over the same period leading to this too little too late situation we are now all facing.
David L Thomson.
24 Laurence Park,
Kinglassie.
Tories’ policies caused poverty
Sir,– I notice Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser (October 9) praising Christian groups in Perthshire for their action on poverty and foodbank provision.
Perhaps he has forgotten that the current Government in Westminster is the latest led by a practising Christian in a so-called “Christian country”, for which the existence of foodbanks can be seen as a success of former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society scheme.
Then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams alerted Christian organisations like the Trussell Trust in June 2011 to the dangers of this Government initiative to shrink the state and abrogate responsibility for some services to volunteer groups and charities, warning it might be a “stale slogan” and a euphemism for “an opportunistic cover for spending cuts”.
This much was apparent in David Cameron’s address to the Council of Christians and Jews at a reception in Downing Street in 2012, where he reaffirmed his Big Society idea “that there’s a huge space between government and the individual that can be filled by organisations, faith-based organisations perhaps in particular, that can deliver great public services, that can do great things in terms of tackling some of the problems of our time”.
There can be no greater witness to the problems of our time than foodbanks, a clear sign the poor are both increasing in number and being made poorer.
We shared Rowan Williams’ concern then as we do now, that while at grassroots level churches, mosques, secular charities and the donating public are delivering a valuable service, they are all being seen as convenient patsies by a Christian Westminster Government as intent as ever on offloading the financial, social and moral responsibility for the poor on to volunteerism.
Alistair McBay.
National Secular Society,
Atholl Crescent,
Edinburgh.
Can we afford to pay for citizens?
Sir,– So Nicola Sturgeon says the SNP Government will pay the “settled status” fee for all EU nationals working in the public sector in Scotland, estimated at £65 each.
I, too, am entirely supportive of EU citizens remaining in the UK if they so wish – but can Ms Sturgeon afford this?
Education and the NHS in Scotland are suffering from a decade of neglect by the nationalists – they are crying out for further investment.
It is believed Gaelic signposting in Scotland has already cost us £26 million.
Can we be sure the SNP has its borrowing and spending priorities right?
Is it really targeting support for the vulnerable and needy in our society as effectively as it could?
Or are gesture politics designed to drive a wedge between us and the rest of the UK more Ms Sturgeon’s priority?
Martin Redfern.
Woodcroft Road,
Edinburgh.
Nobel prize not worth its salt
Sir,– Having given the Nobel Peace Prize to such wholly unworthy celebrities as Barack Obama (for not being George W Bush), Al Gore (for climate alarmism), Cordell Hull (for sending Jewish refugee ships back to Nazi Germany), Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger, appointees awarded this year’s tarnished gong to Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Presumably for tweeting “President Trump is a moron”.
The Rev Dr John Cameron.
Howard Place,
St Andrews.
