This morning’s letters debate roadside maintenance, the relationship between Westminster and Holyrood, workers’ safety, and public pensions.
Beauty of overgrown Fife road verges
Sir,-With reference to the letter from Mr Michael Davies (June 17) about verge maintenance in Fife, I would like to correct his statements.
The roundabout as you come off the Tay Road Bridge into Fife is not the responsibility of Fife Council.
BEAR Scotland has the responsibility for this roundabout, as well as the A92 following on.
Fife Council has the responsibility for the verges and banking as you turn off the roundabout to approach the Newport/Tayport junction on the B946.
The banking has not been cut back because health and safety regulations do not allow working with machinery on slopes over a certain gradient.
Fife Council are, therefore, abiding by the rules. I, for one, will be quite sad when the roundabout and bankings are cut back. I thoroughly enjoy looking at the wild flowers and watching the butterflies, bees and the rabbits.
To my mind, there are many more important things in this world today to worry about than overgrown bankings and roundabouts.
(Cllr) Maggie Taylor.42 William Street,Tayport.
SNP members being sidelined
Sir,-On May 14, David Cameron, as part of his respect agenda, said, “I also want to see a fresh start in the relationship between the British Prime Minister and the Scottish First Minister. This relationship is important. However much we may disagree about issues, we should try to work together for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom and for the benefit of Scotland.”
So how is the respect agenda playing out at Westminster?
In parliamentary questions, it has become noticeable that Scottish MPs, in particular nationalist MPs’ views on Scottish matters, are now being regularly ignored by the Speaker.
More worrying are the appointments to the Scottish affairs committee.
We have five Labour MPs, one Liberal Democrat and five English Tory MPs. It would seem David Cameron’s idea of respect is for English Tories to silence Scots.Malcolm McCandless.40 Muirfield Crescent,Dundee
Tory attack on workers’ safety
Sir,-The proposal by David Cameron to scrap health and safety laws, under the guise of abolishing the nanny state, is a red herring.
He is embarking upon a propaganda campaign to pretend that these laws are only ever used by town hall bureaucrats to stop children playing conkers. While I don’t deny such things occur, they are more an aberration than the norm.
Health and safety laws are designed to stop people being killed or seriously injured in the workplace. But bosses view them as an impediment to profit. The laws are designed to hold companies accountable for negligence. Corporations want to return to 19th-century conditions where their only responsibility was to shareholders.
Nobody would support a move to stop employers being held to account, so Cameron has to dress it up as a campaign against “political correctness”, the favourite stock phrase of hard-right ideologues.
His attack on workplace safety is part of a broader trend within the Con-Dem coalition to roll back post-war gains. Their proposals to privatise welfare and put it in the hands of faith-based organisations and private companies will bring back the 19th century concept of the deserving and undeserving poor.
Additionally, two cabinet members told us that public-sector pensions and free university education are both unaffordable and a burden to the taxpayer.
Strange they don’t extend that concept to corporate welfare, tax evasion, the war in Afghanistan or Trident.Alan Hinnrichs.2 Gillespie Terrace,Dundee.
Unaffordable public pensions
Sir,-The UK’s fiscal position is unsustainable and, without radical spending cuts, we could be heading for a Grecian moment of truth. The situation is further complicated by the fact that, as Chancellor, Gordon Brown hid so many debts, such as public-sector pension liabilities
We cannot continue the New Labour public-spending delusion that the state can become an ever-larger proportion of our economy without impairing growth.
The choice is no longer whether to cut, or not to cut, but which public expenditure is essential and which would be nice to have but can be binned if beyond our means. Nick Clegg has said the fabulous pensions of Brown’s client state of public-service jobsworths are unfair and unaffordable a clear sign that they are top of the cutback list.(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.