Sir, – I personally have much to thank our NHS for over my lifetime and during this current pandemic the work ethic of our NHS of the UK has been exemplary. However, I feel this award of a 4% increase in pay to the Scottish NHS just weeks before the forthcoming elections is both manipulative and ill-advised.
Since the NHS elsewhere are only being awarded 1%, this enhanced offer will not just cause unnecessary division, it will in time create issues across other areas of our public sector services here in Scotland.
Our NHS staff have faced and will continue to face hazards dealing with Covid but for the vast majority it will be a once-in-a-career experience (thank goodness).
We need to remember that our police, fire and coastguard services will face life-threatening situations on a regular basis during their careers and many in our armed forces will potentially face death or mutilation as a fact of their employment.
For the Scottish Government to place one public service on a pedestal at a time of severe job losses, company closures and unimaginable levels of bank borrowing could be seen as politically motivated.
Maybe some senior members of our government need to take a course in human behaviour, in addition to a course in accounting.
Bob Tennant.
Dawson Crescent,
Monifieth.
Pay rise or bribery?
Sir, – Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement of an average £1,000 rise for almost 150,000 NHS Scotland staff means that unless cuts are made elsewhere, the roughly £150 million required will come from Scotland’s 2.5m taxpayers – around £60 each. I just hope the recipients are not so naive as to think this is coming out of Nicola Sturgeon’s purse. Many will see it as a blatant electoral bribe.
Allan Sutherland.
Willow Row,
Stonehaven.
Rural rewards
Sir, – The headline of your recent report on a multi-university study of the Blairgowrie and the Glens ward of Perth and Kinross Council (Perthshire poverty gap wider than in London, Courier, March 23) was based on a statement from one of the curiously named report gatekeepers that “the difference between really, really very rich people and people just below zero” was more dramatic in Blairgowrie and the Glens than anywhere else they had worked including London. Assuming they meant the English London which is home to over 80 billionaires, Russian oligarchs, Arab sheiks, Premiership footballers and all sorts of overpaid celebrities, we must have some seriously wealthy people hidden away in our corner of Perthshire.
Another curious claim from the report was that “much rural work is not good work”. No explanation was given but I suspect many urban workers in call centres or on zero hours contracts might relish the prospect of working in the fresh air and attractive countryside of rural areas. The report refers overall to rural poverty in East Perthshire but the acknowledged areas of poverty and deprivation in the ward are almost exclusively within the town of Blairgowrie and Rattray, which with a population of around 9,000 is not within everyone’s definition of rural. The overall finding of the report that the welfare system is not well adapted to rural life should perhaps be reworded to not adapted to any life.
John Milne.
Kirkmichael,
Perthshire.
Choice for voters
Sir, – There can be no more stark a contrast at the elections for the Scottish Parliament.
On one hand you can vote for a toxic Tory Party that has squandered billions by bunging money for Covid-19 equipment to their chums.
On the other you can vote for a leader who stood up to an eight-hour grilling and an investigation conducted by a legal giant of unquestionable integrity and was found completely innocent of wrong-doing and utterly exonerated.
I suggest we vote in favour of honesty and decency and against the odious Boris Johnson and his toxic brood.
K Heath.
Cortachy,
Kirriemuir.
