Letters: Setting targets for political reasons not a healthy idea

But then I saw “outraged” Health Secreatary Nicola Sturgeon on the TV telling us how betrayed and angry she was after that discovery.

I don’t know how realistic the targets set for NHS were, but knowing the SNP administration they were not very realistic and were set purely for political purpose, just to show how great the health service in Scotland has become under the current government.

NHS management know only too well that if they don’t meet the targets set by the government then they won’t remain in their jobs for too long.

But targets set for political purposes tend to be unrealistic just too often.

Politicians set many targets – to eradicate child poverty by 2016, to make our economy 100 per cent carbon neutral by 2020 and so on.

We sometimes believe them and then we become disappointed and “outraged” if they fail.

So maybe next time Nicola Sturgeon, along with her pals, is setting targets, she might think about reality and the possibility to deliver.

Walter Kazmierczak, Water Street, Edinburgh

New owners must build for future

LIKE most people who live in the area, I have treasured Craighouse on Craiglockhart Hill, along with my children, in all seasons and all weathers.

And like many local people I worried about what would become of the site when Edinburgh Napier University announced that it was making its Sighthill Campus its focal point.

The new owners, the Craighouse Partnership, have a lot of convincing to do, if people are to be persuaded that 116 new and expensive homes is the price that has to be paid for getting the current A-listed buildings refurbished (News, March 28).

There is rightly scepticism that one of the bodies behind the plans is Mountgrange, a name which will produce a grimace for those who live around the failed Caltongate site in the Old Town.

We all want a viable future for the buildings, the open green space and the woodland.

But these are decisions that will be judged 50 and 100 years from now, so we need to get them right

Gavin Corbett, Green candidate for Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart, Briarbank Terrace, Edinburgh

Don’t take the voters for idiots

JUST when you think you’ve seen everything possible in local politics, someone stoops to a new low.

I’ve just received a newsletter from my local Liberal Democrat candidate claiming he helped save St Cuthbert’s Primary School from possible closure.

He conveniently forgets to mention that it was the SNP/LibDem-led council administration, of which he is a senior member, that proposed the closure and which was forced to back down because of parental pressure.

It’s shameful hypocrisy to make such utterly false assertions about who “saved” this local school.

I can assure my Lib Dem candidate that he will not be receiving a vote from me, as he is clearly taking local voters for idiots.

I hope he loses his seat.

Alan J Boston, Rosemount Buildings, Edinburgh

Still waiting for Labour apology

SCOTTISH Labour Party leader Johann Lamont has said that her party had to stop apologising.

I wasn’t aware that her party had apologised for the illegal Iraq war, for the Edinburgh trams or messing up Scotland’s parliament building for ideological reasons.

Andrew JT Kerr, Castlegate, Jedburgh