Readers' Letters: Surely most can afford to pay a little more for defence?
Reader makes his case for higher taxes – only just – to pay for increased defence spending
Like many people I'd gladly pay more tax and have my old age pension reduced to ensure, for example, the armed forces were well enough funded, but politicians and television media seem petrified to do the obvious: explain the case for increasing taxes by, say, 1 per cent and reducing welfare spend by 1 per cent.
This year the UK will spend £330 billion on pensions and working age and disability benefits while collecting around £1,090bn in income tax.
And £60bn is spent on defence. Cutting benefits by an across the board 1 per cent would save £3.3bn, increasing income tax 1 per cent would raise £11bn – a total of £14bn that could raise defence spend by 25 per cent.
This would cost a single pensioner on an average £15,000 in pensions an extra £25 a year (50p per week), £1 per week for an average retired couple on £30,000 per year. The average worker on £700 per week would pay around £5 per week more, and someone on the maximum PIP payment of £187 per week would get £1.87 less.
Surely none of that is too much of a sacrifice to keep the country safe?
Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire
Rosyth is safe
In response to George Morton’s letter of 17 June, saying Rosyth Dockyard is a target as there are a few more jobs, is not right, Rosyth has always been a target, even more so in the past when active nuclear-powered, ballistic missile submarines were being refitted at the base, and destroyers and frigates were there. Also, the workforce was many times the level it is now.
Jobs at Rosyth are good for the local economy and are decent-paying jobs, which are in short supply these days The dockyard has a long history of supporting our country against tyrants, if George is a bit worried he should take solace in the knowledge that today’s munitions are more accurate than in the past so the people in Rosyth will not be bombed,
Andrew Thorpe, Dunfermline, Fife
Truth is out
Money, money, money… in a rich man’s world the natural environment is the first thing to be sacrificed. All in the name of “green, sustainable energy to save the planet” – energy now being hoovered up by the latest corporate wheeze: data centres. Energy‑guzzling, water‑guzzling data centres.
We have been lied to. We have been deceived. We were told wind developments would be temporary – 20 years and gone. A stepping stone to more reliable generation that simply took longer to build. Then the language shifted in planning applications. First came “repowering”. Then “in perpetuity”. Suddenly these industrial sites were no longer temporary at all. They were forever.
For raising these concerns, campaigners were mocked and dismissed. We had seen the writing on the wall but were called deniers, Luddites, nimbys, regressive – and much worse – as the zealots took over the asylum. By the time Labour’s Ed Miliband rocked up, the catastrophic damage was already well underway. He simply accelerated the rhetoric and swiftly removed community protections in England – protections that had already been denied to their counterparts in Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.
Politicians across multiple parties were complicit. Keen to show their allegiance to the global giants, they posed for press photos and made it abundantly clear where their loyalties lay. Westminster or Holyrood, it made no difference. Both parliaments bowed down to corporate investors and threw their own rural citizens under the wheels of the speeding gravy train. The Greens – now, ironically, whining about the very data centres they helped enable – the SNP, the Liberal Democrats... all united in insisting rural Scotland must be industrialised “for the environment’s sake”.
Meanwhile, global investment companies and multinationals saw their opportunity. They poured in, inhaling vast amounts of public money while campaigners were slapped down again and again. But we kept going. And now the truth is laid bare.
It was never about being cleaner. It was always about the money. Always.
Renewables? Ruinables, more like.
Lyndsey Ward Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly, Highland
Energy questions
I would like to ask politicians who tell us how to power our homes, how they power their homes. Solar power and heat pumps cost a fortune, where are people living in high-rise flats supposed to put heating pumps?
The problems are endless and if we all decided to buy electric cars the grid would collapse. I don't see any expansion of the grid where I live.
Robert Duncan, Newton Grange, Midlothian
Sketchy claims
Stan Grodynski (Letters, 18 June) purports to tell us how his so-called Independent Scotland would operate. He admits that the pound sterling would be the Scottish currency. That would immediately disqualify Scotland from applying to the EU, which does not accept countries that use a third country’s currency. It would also mean Scotland having no central bank, no control over its own monetary policy and no lender of last resort, for as long as it used the pound. Using a new and untried currency would open a whole new can of worms.
Like fellow campaigners, Mr Grodynski believes an independent Scotland would easily and quickly join EFTA or the EEA while waiting to apply to the EU. Perhaps he can tell us which official spokespersons from EFTA and the EEA have confirmed that they would immediately accept us, especially while Scotland was tied to the UK’s policies by using the pound.
Mr Grodynski fudges the border issue by invoking the unique and compromised Northern Ireland arrangement. His connections to Europe depend on his flaky claims about joining European organisations.
This outline of his wishlist is not a plan. Nor are the glossy but empty propaganda publications put out (at our expense) by the SNP administration and derided by experts.
It is not up to those of us wishing to maintain the fundamentals of the status quo to produce a prospectus. Those wanting to overturn it will have to do a lot better than Mr Grodynski’s sketchy claims.
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh
Shameful speech
I couldn't believe Donald Trump's G7 speech in which he actually handed compliments to the Iranian regime, claiming they could keep ballistic missiles because they “aren't radical”.
Try telling that to Israel and the UAE. So Israel should bend over to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah, effectively surrendering Lebanon to Iran's terror proxy?
Israel is the only country in history expected to adhere to an agreement it had nothing to do with, opposes, and wasn't involved in the discussions about.
It is astonishing that western governments think wealth can make jihadists abandon Islamic Jihad.
Lewis Finnie, Edinburgh
Tartan triumph
The football collective we know and love as the Tartan Army are at one and the same time hilarious (for their antics), heroic (for their dogged stoicism and fanatical support), and cringeworthy (for their tartan kitsch) in almost equal measure... depending on who you are, I guess.
Nirvana – that state of liberation when all inhibitions are lost – was fleetingly touched with Scotland’s 1-0 group-stage win over mighty Haiti (FIFA world-ranked 83) in the impressive Boston Stadium, home to NFL team the New England Patriots.
Boston is one of my favourite US cities and you simply can’t be there without seeing the Red Sox.
The Tartan army did not disappoint. Around 10,000 or so invaded for a post-match celebration (the Red Sox were playing rivals Texas Rangers in a crunch game).
Local fans were treated to a very loud, non-stop rendition of Tartan Army top ten hits including the Proclaimers’ “I would walk 500 miles etc” (5,000 miles would have been more accurate).
Who would have thought it? Baseball – a game whose rules the vast majority of the Tartan Army will not know, a game that makes the slowest game of cricket look like speed skating.
Incredible! And, despite the Red Sox losing, the locals apparently loved it: referencing the boost in city-energy one leading pundit claimed that it was “the best thing to hit Boston since Tom Brady” – Tom Brady being an American football icon and one of the sport’s all-time great quarterbacks.
What’s more, a Red Sox fan who wanted to make the atmosphere generated by the Tartan Army permanent said, “Hear me out… add Glasgow to the Boston subway system.”
Now there’s a strategic partnership for the First Minister and Glasgow’s Lord Provost to get their heads around! Sorry Edinburgh.
Ewen Peters Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire
H2O no!
Hydration breaks at the World Cup games?
No! No! No!
How on earth did football ever manage without them for some 150 years?! They should be scrapped! They really break up the rhythm of the game.
J Moir, Aberdeen
And finally...
I hear that there is to be a new visitor attraction in Glasgow soon. Not only can you visit the Burrell collection but you can also visit the Murrell collection.
Alastair Paisley, Juniper Green, Edinburgh
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