Sir, I am Scottish and fiercely proud of it.
I love my heritage and think the people of Scotland to be the greatest in the world. As a musician I love the sound of Gaelic in song. Do I want to learn to speak Gaelic? No. The whole point of language is to communicate and there is nowhere in the world where I would need Gaelic to do that.
In fact, there is nowhere in Fife where I could walk into a shop, a council office, or even a tourist office and ask a question in Gaelic and expect to be understood. I would have more success if I asked in French or Spanish, both of which I speak to some extent, than I would using Gaelic. So why do our political leaders want to spend lots of our money trying to “save” the language?
Ask any tourist what drew them to Scotland and they’ll say the scenery, the whisky, the wild coast, the islands, the people, and so on, but I doubt if any will say they came because of Gaelic.
To suggest it is bigoted for people to ask for a halt to be called on the duplication of signs and the active promotion of the language is insulting. It is simply common sense.
Peter Grant, well known for jumping on band wagons, states: “Language is not just words.” Emotive, but factually wrong. To encourage those who speak the language to continue to do so is laudable. To give those who want to learn to speak it the opportunity is also great. But to try to force it upon the whole of Scotland is to promote divisiveness within the country.
It’s time to be honest and realistic about this. Gaelic has an honoured place in our past but is not needed as an integral part of our future.
Ken Greenaway. Culross House, Torr of Kedlock, Cupar.
One way to save money
Sir, If anything illustrates the complete irrelevance of the SNP in local government, it is the embarrassing and ridiculous posturing of their members on Fife Council when discussing the equally irrelevant Gaelic Language Plan forced on local authorities.
Their liberal use of student common-room agitprop terms of abuse, overworked clichs and idiotic neologisms to suppress any opinion that did not accord with their party’s perverted vision of the UK, which they cannot in any case deliver from participating in a local authority, strengthens the case for implementation of the recommendations in Professor Kerley’s report on the structure of local government in Scotland, published in 2000.
This report recommended that the optimum size of a local authority be 53 elected councillors; Fife has 78, each elected to multi-member wards by the STV voting system. To put this into some sort of perspective, Fife Council, with its population of around 350,000 has 78 elected members. The city of New York, with a population of around eight million, has 51.
Fife Council has recently carried out a public consultation on ways to save money, so perhaps a radical solution would be to trim 25 elected members from their composition? It would reduce the councillors’ annual wage bill by some £440,000. I’m sure that could be put to better use.
John Gordon. 1 North Street, Glenrothes.
Defence a start at least
Sir, I am delighted to see that my Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Menzies Campbell, is sponsoring a House of Commons motion calling for at least 2% of the UK’s gross domestic product to be spent on defence, including a 1% per annum increase in the defence equipment budget.
The motion also recognises, at last, that the UK faces a growing and ever more complex range of current and future threats, many of which were unforeseen, such as the Ukrainian crisis.
It has always been the case that the unforeseen represents a great threat and it is some small reassurance now that at last some MPs are asking for “more”. A commitment to a 4% spend is closer to what we need, but this is at least a beginning.
Mike Scott-Hayward. Sawmill House, Kemback Bridge, Fife.
A good local lad he ain’t
Sir, One of the strengths and attractions of The Courier is its neutrality with regard to party politics, an approach I personally welcome. On Saturday, however, Kieran Andrews came very close to straying from that path.
The phrase “anecdotal evidence” was used to imply a collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote. How many people were “polled” to come up with this assertion one, two or three, a dozen?
He went on to say, when speculating where these deserting voters were supposedly going: “Not to the Tories, apparently.” How many people was that piece of speculation based on?
And then to compound matters, in referring to Stephen Gethins, he states: “If he can play up the ‘good local lad’ card which he should have no problem doing…’
Stephen Gethins no doubt has a number of qualifications but being a “good local lad” is not one of them. My understanding is that of the four declared candidates Huw Bell (Conservatives), Tim Brett (Liberal Democrats), Brian Thomson (Labour Party) and Stephen Gethins (SNP) the only candidate who doesn’t live in NE Fife is the very same Stephen Gethins.
Bryan Poole. Independent Councillorfor Cupar.
Figures provide the proof
Sir, Kieran Andrew’s article on Saturday was extremely poor. He implies that the new SNP Candidate, just parachuted into North East Fife, has local connections; there is no evidence for this. He cites “anecdotal” evidence of Liberal Democrat collapse in the constituency but does not give any source or quantity.
I can state categorically that Tim Brett, the Lib Dem Candidate and his team have called on more than 20,000 homes throughout the constituency in the last 10 months, and spoken to more than 10,000 voters of all persuasions; the results show show that Liberal Democrat support holds firm and many Conservative and Labour supporters will vote for Tim to prevent the SNP winning independence by the back door.
Some may not be convinced by this evidence, so I would point to the most recent public voting figures for North East Fife, the Fife Council Elections in 2012, when the Lib Dems were already suffering from the unpopularity of taking part in the coalition government.
In that election, the Liberal Democrats polled 8,180 votes to the SNP’s 7,689; Labour polled 4,785 and the Conservatives only 3,805. This shows conclusively that the Lib Dems are the only unionist party which can stop the SNP winning in North East Fife .
Anthony Garrett. President, North East Fife Liberal Democrats, 1 Royal Terrace, Falkland.
Solution to the congestion?
Sir, Is it just me or did the much discussed and delayed traffic light works (phase two) at Claypotts not promise vast improvements when finally completed?
As a professional driver who travels through this junction westbound at the same time every morning, I can only say what a dismal waste of time, money and effort the whole episode has been. Once again traffic is having to queue all the way back from Panmuirfield at times.
On another note, if the powers-that-be listened to actual road users for once they could see a low-cost solution to some of the congestion (both am and pm) by making the stretch between Claypotts and Scot Fyffe three lanes with the middle lane only to be used westbound during the morning peak and eastbound during the evening one. It is certainly wide enough.
Roderick McGill. Marketgate, Arbroath.
Coalition made in heaven
Sir, Given the latest polls showing Labour in Scotland likely to be wiped out by the SNP and no party predicted to have a majority in Westminster, it looks increasingly likely that the outcome of the election will be a Lab/Con coalition.
Culturally they are virtually indistinguishable public school, Oxbridge, public relations/parliamentary researcher/ financial services; both committed to further austerity, and renewing Trident; both committed to maintaining the establishment stranglehold on the country. A coalition made in heaven I would say.
Les Mackay. 5 Carmichael Gardens, Dundee.