Sir, – I was disappointed to read Mike Donachie’s intemperate attack on smokers who light up on hospitals grounds (Lighting up debate on smoking near hospitals, Courier, February 24).
I completely understand that hospitals don’t want to encourage or condone smoking, but they can be very stressful places for patients, visitors and staff.
Banning smoking outside, where there is no risk to anyone else, suggests a terrible lack of empathy for people who may be at a low ebb and in need of a comforting cigarette.
Banning smoking on hospital grounds also discriminates against patients who are infirm and unable to leave the site without assistance.
Threatening them with fines of up to £1,000 is genuinely shocking.
The policy advocated last week by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (Calls for 15-metre no smoking zones outside Scottish hospitals, Courier, February 18) would also ban vaping on hospital grounds which suggests this is less about health and more about controlling people’s behaviour.
The overwhelming majority of vapers use e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking.
If this was a health issue why would hospitals prohibit the use of a product that leading bodies like Public Health England say is 95% less harmful than cigarettes?
Instead of punishing people with legally enforceable no-smoking areas, the government should allow hospitals to provide comfortable smoking areas within easy walking distance of hospital buildings.
What is “offensive and disgusting” is not smoking outside hospitals, but the intolerance of people like Mike Donachie, an ex-smoker whose compassion for those who still enjoy the habit extends no further than the end of his own censorious nose.
Simon Clark.
Director, Forest,
Cambridge.
Use cash to fund public services
Sir, – I am in complete agreement with Mrs Cook regarding £2 billion pounds for a new investment bank (Far better use for £2 billion of banking cash, Courier, February 25).
Along with this we have a Scottish Government which has allocated £6 million for “foreign embassies”, £4m from the public purse to promote independence and god knows how much is spent on consultants and special advisers (SPADS).
Every council in Scotland is short on funds again and public services are also running short.
Shouldn’t the government use all of the funds from the above and also from all their vanity projects to demonstrate to every man, woman and child in Scotland that they can run a prosperous country, and in turn this would convince all that we can trust them to have independence.
Instead they want everyone to suffer whilst chanting their mantra that Westminster Tories are to blame, in the hope that we buy this line and let financial ruin befall our country.
Allan Stewart.
28 Dronley Terrace,
Muirhead,
Angus.
Drag queen fury is misplaced
Sir, – The apparent fury over a drag queen being invited in to talk to Scottish school children seems misplaced.
In many schools in Scotland, men in frocks and fancy hats are frequently to be found, talking to children about talking snakes, a global flood and filial sacrifice.
This is both legal and encouraged by successive Scottish governments.
I have no doubt these are also the same children taken to pantomimes every year by their schools and parents to see men dressed in frocks and fancy hats engaged in story telling.
Alistair McBay.
Lawmuirview,
Methven.
No more rubbish please, Gordon
Sir, – Yet again Gordon Brown comes up with more nefarious undermining comments to create disharmony in Scotland (Scotland could become one of the West’s most divided nations, warns Gordon Brown, Courier, February 20).
He runs over the border to Newcastle to discuss Scottish issues with his Conservative pals telling anybody who will listen that this is a dreadful state of affairs.
No Mr Brown, Scotland isn’t divided.
It is waking up to failed politicians who have tied it to the coat tails of Westminster and, over the years, strangled it.
His solution is laughable, the 50% and rising of Scots who believe in independence must according to him now bend their knees to Westminster and have no more thoughts of being their own people.
Please Mr Brown, no more of this rubbish.
Bryan Auchterlonie.
Bluebell Cottage,
Perth.
Punish Tay bridge speeders
Sir, – My wife and I had reason very recently to cross the Tay Road Bridge when a 30mph high wind warning was in place.
Observing the speed limit, the majority of cars following overtook us with ease with some travelling much nearer 50mph.
The buffeting side winds made driving difficult even at 30mph.
Warning signs were clearly in place at either end of the bridge.
I should like to know whether any speed checks are carried out on the road bridge and penalties imposed on offenders as on open roads.
Michael Beattie.
9 Bayfield Gardens,
Broughty Ferry.
Scotland going back to future
Sir, – Jill Stephenson, a devout unionist, says she wants to turn the clock back (Small countries don’t get look in, Courier, February 25).
Back to a point where a large portion of the people of Scotland were ill-informed about their countries financial contribution to the HM Treasury.
Back to a place where we were cow-towed into believing we were too wee, too poor and too stupid to look after ourselves and our own affairs.
Her argument that the country will remain divided is her view and there is no statistical evidence on which to base this on.
One irrefutable axiom is “change is constant”, and any system which is not able to adapt to change will break.
It is for this reason the union is breaking.
This union is incapable of accepting that the people of Scotland have changed and want to take the control of their journey.
The journey which the union has embarked upon is one which will seriously damage Scotland.
The Immigration Visa rules released and promoted by Home Secretary Priti Patel, is only one example.
The fishing industry will shortly feel the UK love bombing, if not already.
Alistair Ballantyne.
Birkhill, Angus.
Failing to see wood for trees
Sir, – John Phimister (Battling against Mother Nature, Courier, February 24) is right to blame Mother Nature for her normal patterns of cyclical climate changes.
Politicians have responded to fears of man-made global warming decades and centuries hence, based on greenhouse gases released from home, industry and transport.
Their “remedy” of setting up decarbonisation programmes is quite inappropriate.
They have not seen the wood for the trees.
Dr Charles Wardrop.
111, Viewlands Rd West,
Perth.
