Letters: The Scottish people have been badly let down by their inept, dysfunctional leaders

SIR – The past two days in Scotland have been a pathetic farce (report, April 26), reflecting the calibre of those responsible for managing the country’s health, wealth and security.

There will be few who regret the departure of the Greens from the power-sharing deal with the SNP; they had little interest in initiatives that would benefit the majority of Scots.

Likewise, the probable downfall of Humza Yousaf, the First Minister, won’t have come as a surprise to many. During his time in office, he has failed to add any value to people’s lives.

It appears there isn’t enough talent or competence around in Scotland to allow the devolution debacle to continue. If it does, the Scots will end up by far the worst-off members of the United Kingdom.

Paul McPhail
Glasgow

SIR – Humza Yousaf’s miscalculation in ending the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Greens would be remarkable were it not so unsurprising. His lack of political nous has been obvious for some time.

He described the defection of Ash Regan, the former SNP MSP, to the Alba Party as “no great loss”. Now that she could decide his fate, she must ensure that she is not “bought off”. Her revenge would benefit everyone in Scotland.

Richard Allison
Edinburgh

Labour’s rail plans

SIR – At the end of 1947, as the Big Four regional railway companies (GWR, LMS, LNER, SR) were recovering from their magnificent war effort, they were nationalised by Labour (Letters, April 26). This was followed by strikes that forced more goods on to the roads, and ultimately the Tory closure of far too much of the network in accordance with Dr Beeching’s recommendations.

This hatchet job resulted in the loss of rail access to many towns and villages, and destroyed much of the rail infrastructure. The network left was a mediocre remnant, resembling a river denied most of its tributaries.

While the subsequent privatisation has had its problems, there is no denying that our trains are now much cleaner, faster and more frequent than in the grim old days of British Rail. However, the Network Rail separation of the track and its associated infrastructure from the train operators has never made much sense, and the former Big Four companies would have almost certainly found such an ill-conceived move to be unsafe and unworkable.

There is clearly more work to be done to re-evaluate, restructure and expand our (still) strike-ridden railway system, but Labour’s proposed renationalisation would simply repeat the mistakes of history.

John Turner
Ely, Cambridgeshire

SIR – We had the good fortune to be in Germany last week. The railways there are often held up as a beacon of efficiency, and I believe they’re largely state-owned.

We were in Frankfurt, heading for Marburg with a couple of hundred others, and waiting on the platform for the 10.21. At 10.35 it disappeared from the electronic board, only to be replaced by the next scheduled service – at 12.21. There was not a single announcement, despite many others for delayed services.

Our request for a refund at the information desk was met with an interrogation. Why could we not go on our “day trip” later in the day?

We’re still waiting for the refund.

Michael West
Poole, Dorset

Dental reform

SIR – Liz Eales’s comments (Letters, April 25) apply as much to NHS dentistry in England as in Wales.

The NHS dental contract introduced early this century replaced the original system of paying dentists for work performed according to a complex, but carefully costed, scale of fees. Under the new contract, no dental practice can afford to provide comprehensive treatment to patients with extensive or complicated requirements.

It is high time NHS dentistry redefined its role to provide basic pain relief and care for those unable to access or afford routine treatment elsewhere. There is a case for offering more generous provision to children, in order to establish a dentition that can be maintained throughout life.

In my career as a consultant orthodontist, I have seen technology advance tremendously. With adequate funding, it is now technically possible to ensure excellent dental appearance and function for practically all. The benefits of orthodontic treatment range from the trivial and cosmetic to the profound and life-changing. We should reappraise priorities, and even introduce an element of means testing for precious NHS resources.

Dr David Howells
Llannon, Carmarthenshire

SIR – Liz Eales may well be right to blame Tony Blair’s government for the state of NHS dentistry in Wales today.

However, she also suggests that the Conservatives have been in power long enough to have improved the situation. This is surely not correct, as NHS matters are devolved to the Labour government.

Geoff Hill
Bristol

Sunak’s Covid record

SIR – You were right to point out the irony in Rishi Sunak’s speech on worklessness (Leading Article, April 20). After all, amid the panic of the pandemic, he boasted about measures, such as furlough, that discouraged staff from going to work.

These broke the social contract of work, replacing it with free-flowing money, while the imposed isolation contributed to the psychological struggles that are now preventing many from returning to work.

Rebecca Aldridge
Old Basing, Hampshire

Ofsted judgments

SIR – The Department for Education’s decision to maintain the one-word summary of school inspections (report, 25 April) will have terrible results.

Ofsted will sink even lower in the estimation of hard-working teachers, and parents who care deeply about the education of their children will know well enough that they are being patronised.

The bureaucrats and politicians responsible need to return to the classroom. There they can be taught the difference between simple and simplistic.

Adrian Charles
Enfield, Middlesex

SIR – If one word is good enough to describe the performance of a school, perhaps a similar rating could be given for the Government.

What would that word be?

Andrew Morrison
Faveraye-Mâchelles, Maine-et-Loire, France

Pop at the Proms

SIR – Given how few classical music festivals there are, why is the BBC determined to waste Proms time on pop music (“BBC insists Sam Smith Prom ‘appropriate’”, report, April 25)? I don’t notice Glastonbury having a Beethoven and Mozart day.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Northwood, Middlesex

SIR – I wonder how many of those encouraged to film at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s concerts (“Take pictures and applaud when you like, orchestra tells audience”, report, April 26) will ever watch the film later.

Mark Solon
London E1

Pre-Civilisation

SIR – There should be no need for “trigger warnings” for old books, films, plays or television programmes such as Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation (Comment, April 26).

It should simply suffice to display, ahead of the programmes and at the entrance to all libraries, cinemas and theatres, the opening sentence from The Go-Between by L P Hartley: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Kevin Richardson
London SE13

The best of times?

SIR – James Carragher (Letters, April 25) wagers that members of Gen Z would happily trade places with young people in the 1970s.

Really? No internet, no smartphones, no social media, no music streaming? The choice of just three television channels, with the only live football being the FA Cup final? People smoking next to you in the office or in restaurants? And these are the more trivial matters – don’t get me started on the lack of serious, life-changing freedoms now happily taken for granted.

I’m not a betting man, but I’ll risk a small flutter.

Richard Light
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

SIR – An employment judge has ruled that saying “back in your day” to older colleagues is “age harassment” (report, April 24). However, I don’t mind when my granddaughter tells me: “You are so 20th century.”

David Blake
Hawkhurst, Kent

Raising a glass

SIR – I have fond memories of Leighton James (Obituaries, April 26) for two reasons.

First, in the early 1970s I was a season ticket holder at Burnley, and enjoyed his speed and agility on many occasions.

Secondly, his transfer to Derby for £310,000 in November 1975 was completed on the day our first child, a son, had been born in the early hours.

I decided to celebrate that evening with a drink or two at my local in Rossendale – and, to my surprise, found Leighton in the tap-room drinking champagne with friends.

Having told Roland, the landlord, the cause for my celebration, he said I’d better do it in style with champagne. “No, I’ll have a pint of bitter, thanks – I can’t afford champagne,” I replied.

Roland gave me a wink and nodded in Leighton’s direction. “Maybe, but he can,” he said, promptly opening another bottle and giving it to me. “I’ll put it on his bill.”

So cheers, Leighton, and thanks for your generosity (even though you were unaware of it) on that cold, foggy night when we both had something to celebrate.

Alan Hollowood
Shillingstone, Dorset

SIR – With regard to first drinks (Letters, April 26), one of my earliest and fondest memories is of visiting my great-grandmother in the west of Ireland some 60 years ago and tasting a hot toddy. I think I was five, and I still enjoy the drink.

I believe she also had some poitín in a cupboard for her arthritis, though the advice was to rub this on rather than imbibe it.

John Hopkins
Beckenham, Kent

SIR – Jacqueline Davies (Letters, April 26) says Babycham turned her into a sensible drinker. My lesson was on a Christmas morning when my father, who wasn’t a regular drinker, gave me a tot of whisky in my cup of tea. I’ve never drunk whisky since.

Val Harbidge
Cowling, North Yorkshire

What the ancients knew about the Earth

SIR – Michael Grenfell (Letters, April 24), criticising John Simpson’s citation of opinion polls on the conflict in Gaza, asserts: “It was never true that the Earth is flat, even when a majority of people believed it to be.”

From at least the days of ancient Greece, however, the sphericity of the globe was well-established. In the second century AD, the Roman geographer and astronomer Ptolemy explained how we know it to be so, and thereafter the concept was widely appreciated throughout Europe.

The notion that anyone of note believed the Earth to be flat before modern times is a demonstrable absurdity. It is not necessary to be an astronomer to observe ships vanishing over the skyline, or the Earth’s shadow on the moon during an eclipse.

Nikolai Tolstoy
Southmoor, Berkshire

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