Sir, I write in response to the question posed in your editorial on Saturday about Police Scotland’s latest exercise in bureaucracy a document on micro-management.
The answer in my case, and I am sure there will be many more retired officers who think likewise, is one of incredulity.
It beggars belief that the force has the time and money to expend effort in such a pointless exercise while at the same time reducing officer numbers in the East Neuk to less than they were 40 years ago.
In the Fife Constabulary era, the shift sergeants and shift inspector would have ensured that required standards were met.
Unfortunately, this booklet is symptomatic of all that is wrong with the monster created by the formation of Police Scotland where presentation is everything and practical day-to-day policing takes second place.
It is, by any measure, a shambles and is alienating huge numbers of law-abiding citizens.
It is astonishing to officers of my generation and older that the force executive have managed to keep their jobs, given that they are guilty of being less than frank with almost every organisation who questions them.
They certainly would have been required to go under the old arrangements.
The excellent interview with ACC Wilson in your newspaper is, I think, a much more accurate picture of the current state of policing in Scotland.
In December last year I met a serving officer, now also retired, whose comment on the state of the force was simply: “However bad you think it is, the reality is much worse.” That comment is all the support needed for ACC Wilson’s views.
It is long past time for the Justice Minister to wield the axe and remove the incompetents in charge before they inflict more damage on policing in Scotland.
George Thomson. 44 Viewforth Place, Pittenweem.
Bring backold standards
Sir, Former Tayside Assistant Chief Constable Angela Wilson says she thinks policing is now moving backwards as officers are being urged to meet targets instead of using their discretion.
She cites traffic stops as an example.
I am afraid this type of policy goes on in all walks of life now and a return to good, old-fashioned common sense is needed.
George Aimer. 82 Kinghorne Road, Dundee.
Tactical voting nothing new
Sir, Your story, Tactical voting urged in Perth (April 13) is not a true reflection of the tactical voting campaign here.
The organisation mentioned, United Against Separation, work across the country.
They liaise through social media, as you suggest, and organise leafleting in constituencies, sometimes supporting a local pro-Union candidate, sometimes drawing attention to the inadequacies as they see them with the SNP in government.
They have Conservative supporters as well as the Liberal Democrat and Labour ones you mention, although the vast majority have no particular affiliation at all.
UAS came up to Perth once, about six weeks ago, and were open about what they were doing.
The local tactical voting campaign in Perth and Kinross is called Forward Together, and it is us that Pete Wishart particularly objects to, as he is well aware that he is vulnerable here.
It is we that unsettle him by setting up our gazebo right beside him on the High Street in Perth every Saturday.
We cover two parliamentary constituencies, Perth and North Perthshire, and Ochil and South Perthshire.
There is nothing new about this.
People in Scotland ejected the Tories in the 1990s by tactical voting.
They are now turning their attention to the SNP and using the same tactics on them.
Victor Clements. Forward Together, Tomchulan, Old Crieff Road, Aberfeldy.
Defending the Union
Sir, I read your article (April 13) about tactical voting in Perth and had a wry smile as you quoted Pete Wishart as saying it was “a bizarre and poorly thought out tactic”.
Immediately a phrase including the words pot, kettle and black came to mind when we consider that Mr Wishart’s party leader only a few days ago urged the English to vote Green or Progressive Labour (I’m not sure either) and join with the SNP to keep David Cameron out of power.
This is the classic SNP stance of do as I say, not as I do.
Tactical voting is a perfectly sensible way of keeping out the candidate the majority of voters would not want to represent them.
At the last election, 60% of voters in Perthshire supported Unionist parties and it makes perfect sense for us to unite to keep out that party whose only policy is to break up the United Kingdom and the Union.
By denying the SNP their platform we defend the Union.
I would urge all Unionist voters to exert the power given to them by their vote to support that candidate in their constituency best placed to defeat the SNP.
Your vote will then have truly meant something.
Ian Campbell. 1 West Park, Stanley.
Salmond wrong on oil
Sir, In his column (March 30) Alex Salmond was once again using my native Norway as an example when preaching his visions for a future Scottish utopia, and once again he needs to be corrected.
While talking about the Norwegian oil fund, Salmond mentions “the wealthy second-generation beneficiaries of Norway’s offshore oil riches” in Stavanger.
These “oil kids” happen to be wealthy only because their parents are employed in well-paid jobs. There is no difference here to oil workers in Aberdeen, apart from the fact that those who are based in Scotland pay less tax and get cheaper goods.
The fact that Salmond blames redundancies in the oil sector on the Treasury with no mention of the oil price is laughable. He claims, however, that the good times will come again well, few people in Norway believe that. Norway’s focus is now to foster growth in other sectors.
Haakon Blakstad. Dalby Road, London.
Guardian scheme raises concerns
Sir, Ian G Richmond is spot on in his letter, Guardian Issues Raise Concerns (April 10).
When I first heard of this initiative by the government for named-person guardians for every child in Scotland, I assumed that one person would be assigned as guardian to each child for the duration of her/his childhood.
I was wrong. In the child’s infancy it will be a nurse or social worker; later it will be a school teacher and so on.
When a guardian has acareer change, the poor child will be given a stranger as a new guardian.
Where will be the continuity? Where the intimacy and trust? Where the love?
This is indeed a veryworrying development.
Robert D Ramsay. Kinblethmont, Arbroath.
A touch ofRoman realism
Sir, I attended one of the opening nights of Titus Andronacus, the play being presented by Dundee Rep from the Bonar Hall.
I have to congratulate the cast for such a believable, superb performance, and the fact that although it is all about Rome and Romans, this production has been brought up to date, so not a toga in sight.
I should also say that this is not a production for the squeamish or faint hearted because there is a lot of violence and extreme cruelty occurs, but then apparently that’s how it was in Roman times.
Mrs June Reid. 12 Findhorn Street, Dundee.
Volcanic answerto climate change
Sir, The eco-zealots have monotonously told us that mankind is on the pathway to oblivion if we do not repent and give up fossil fuels.
Now researchers at the University of Edinburgh have revealed that the greatest mass extinction on earth, 252million years ago, wastriggered by extreme volcanic activity and the carbon released was absorbed by the oceans making them highly acidic.
So much for the bad press that fossil fuels are subjected to, it really is those naughty volcanoes of which there are more than 200 active.
They should be invited to the UN Climate Change conference in Paris in December to explain their eruptions and given economically destructive CO2 reduction targets like the rest of us.
Dan Arnott. St Brycedale Court, Kirkcaldy.
Let Trident cashfeed children
Sir, John Dorward’s comments (April 10) on the costs to each person of keeping Trident 12p per day, (£43.80 a year). In an article last weekend on the relation between administration costs to income published by several charities in Scotland, Mary’s Meals was identified as having excellentrevenue to administration ratios.
For just £12.50 per child per year, this charity feeds more than a million hungry children at school every day.
Mary’s Meals achieves this through having thousands of volunteer mums and grans cook and distribute the meals in the countries it serves. If there were a choice between paying for Trident, or feeding millions more of the world’s starving children, whichposition would the UK population support?
Perhaps we would prefer to see Trident rust away and every £43.80 saved annually used to keep another three children well fed daily and in receipt of an education.
Andrew Lothian. Blackness Avenue, Dundee.