Sir, – It was with great anger and disappointment that I read your article on the proposed closure of the mental health unit at Stracathro Hospital, Brechin.
As a service user who sat on the committee which planned and built the unit, I am absolutely horrified that NHS Tayside is even contemplating this action which can only be described as a backward step in the provision of services.
This is a fantastic unit which took many months of consultation, planning and building, not to mention the fact that it cost £20 million.
However, the real concern for me is patient care. I have been an in-patient in both the Susan Carnegie Centre at Stracathro and Carseview in Dundee.
I have to say, my experience at Stracathro far outweighed that at Carseview.
The setting of these type of facilities is hugely important and the beautiful and peaceful surroundings of Stracathro are more beneficial to an improved level of mental health. I hope that NHS Tayside sees sense and keeps the unit at Stracathro open.
Eleanor Brown. 41 Andy Stewart Court, Arbroath.
Sinister new legislation
Sir, – Whatever their failings and incompetence while in government, the SNP has shown an extraordinary competence in wielding authoritarian control over their elected members and potential candidates bordering on an Orwellian vision of party loyalty.
Dissent is not tolerated in a party having only one ideological purpose which is to create an independent Scottish state that it will dominate and control.
Authoritarian states destroy trust within communities, between individuals and families to exercise their power as they see fit with a reluctantly compliant society.
History is littered with examples of this political prison camp that state control can create.
I feel the SNP is now displaying this tendency through the named person scheme.
Legislation that is passed by one-party states, usually billed as being designed to improve the quality, security, care and wellbeing of its citizens, can become blunt instruments of intrusive state control that is unleashed on a population complacent and casual about their rights and freedoms, so bitterly won by their forebears.
Whether by accident or design, the Scottish Government has enacted exactly the very legislation that smacks of sinister state control that every Scot who values freedom should resist.
I believe we are witnessing the ultimate in government control freakery with the named person legislation.
The SNP has decided that every parent, every grandparent every relative of every child is not capable of caring for that child without the supervision of a guardian appointed by the state.
Government power to intrude into family life will be substantial. It will see sharing of data and confidential information about children and their parents who may not even be informed.
Young children will be asked to fill in forms requiring very personal information about themselves and their family to be shared among shadowy figures in state employment.
Parents who refuse to engage in this compulsory scheme and unable to opt out, will be regarded as hostile or non-engaging, leading to further state involvement.
I sincerely hope that Scots will not willingly succumb to this sinister move to allow the ultimate control of their lives by the state. Let’s hope it becomes an election issue.
Iain G Richmond. Guildy House, Monikie.
Undermining family units
Sir, – Feminist theory demands that men and women have identical involvement in employment, to achieve an androgynous statistical utopia, and, also, according to some, to enable women to leave their partner without undue financial consequence.
State-funded child care is key to this.
The SNP subsidises twin-income families at the expense of husband and wife teams with one earner and one full-time carer and nurturer.
For example, a wealthy family of two working doctors would receive tax-payer funded child care. A family of a nurse and full-time parent, doing what they think is best for their young children, receive nothing. The lack of transferable tax allowance disadvantages them further.
SNP policy is driven by feminist ideology, not the wellbeing of children.
At least they are consistent: the named person scheme similarly undermines the assumption that parents primarily care for their own children.
Richard Lucas. 11 Broomyknowe, Colinton, Edinburgh.
Overwhelmed by debt burden
Sir, – Our Prime Minister is fond of quoting that the UK has the fifth-largest economy in the world.
That may be so, but looking at the five largest economies, they are more or less proportionate to the size of the country by population.
They are namely USA, China, Japan, Germany, then the UK.
The small nations of Europe can never hope to reach the level of the top five but examining the GDP per capita one finds a different ranking for the European economies.
The richest European countries per capita (IMF figures for 2015 in US dollars) are Luxembourg ($87,000), Norway ($67,200), Switzerland ($58,100), Ireland ($51,000), Netherlands ($48,000), Sweden ($46,100), Germany ($46,000), and UK ($40,000).
The United Kingdom may be a wealthy country compared to some others but per capita GDP tells a different story as we are down the table at number 27.
We run an austerity budget and will continue to do so until 2019 when magically it will ease for the election in 2020 but the poorest of our society always seem to suffer with the richest 20% getting a bonus with the proposed tax change to top bands.
We will see what our Scottish Parliament proposes next year.
We continually struggle to reduce our deficit but our debt continues to rise and is now an enormous £1.6 trillion and rising.
Mr Osborne’s claim that he will reduce our deficit to near zero by 2020 is a fallacy. We will still have a deficit and the debt will have risen to £1.8 trillion pounds.
So beware when our Prime Minster and Chancellor of the Exchequer quote economic figures. It is all a game.
DW Fenwick. The Granary, West Mill Street, Perth.
Huge Scottish rail subsidies
Sir, – A rail revolution exclaims Scottish Transport Minister Derek Mackay, a tireless servant of Abellio, the offshoot of Dutch state railways which the SNP has chosen to run Scotland’s train services.
Obviously the SNP believes “we are too wee, too poor and too stupid” to run them ourselves.
But Mr Mackay is remarkably silent about the subsidy which Abellio receives from the taxpayer.
The Office of Rail and Road in its report, GB Rail Industry Financial Information, published on March 9, revealed that every passenger journey in Scotland is subsidised to the tune of £6.70.
This compares with England which receives an average subsidy of £1.66 per passenger journey.
And while Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne can announce a spending package to modernise roads like the A66 from North Yorkshire to Cumbria, already dualled for part of its length, roads in Scotland like the A68 through the Borders to Edinburgh remain stuck in a patched time warp.
William Loneskie. Amulree, 9 Justice Park, Oxton, Lauder.
Continuing an old tradition
Sir, – It should not come as a surprise that your columnist Jim Crumley suggests demolishing Perth City Hall.
I recall he also suggested demolishing the old bank building at the east end of Dundee’s High Street to make way for a tourist centre.
However, in Jim’s defence, as a Dundonian, demolishing property is in his genes.
RHL Mulheron. 28 Cowgate, Tayport.