Letters: Turn negative comments into more positive action

With the trams being the exception, the council must be doing something right, especially when it comes to tourism since Edinburgh remains a top visitor destination.

There is, though, so much more to running a city than mere festivals and tourism but compared to the way some cities are managed perhaps we should be grateful.

Times are difficult enough without unnecessary bickering and squabbling and the people of Edinburgh should be encouraged at every opportunity to be positive about themselves, their city and as, hard as it might be, the council.

If the latter proves impossible there is always the democratic option of forming and electing a different legislative body to run the show.

Angus McGregor, Albion Road, Edinburgh

Children’s rights before smokers’

Alastair MacIntyre may well be right to believe that we could be living in a Nazi state when it comes to the right to light up a cigarette in private cars. (Interactive, September 12). I am sure that the babies and young children, strapped into their cars seats whilst this is happening and forced to inhale the smoke from irresponsible parents, agree with him.

Nothing infuriates and upsets me more than pulling up alongside a car with its windows closed and witnessing adults selfishly puffing away on a cigarette whilst their children innocently sit in the back.

I am not an anti-smoker but do agree with a lot of the suggestions made by the politicians. If adults wish to participate in this filthy habit, carry on, but please give those that don’t want to or are in a position where they have no choice, the chance to breath clean, fresh air. It is a basic human right.

Christine Carnie, Boswall Drive, Edinburgh

No reason to get caught cold again

I NOTED with pleasure recent news reports that our councils are well stocked up with salt, grit and ploughing machines in anticipation of another horrendous winter.

This is good. Never again do I want to see reports in the Evening News where everywhere and everything is shut down because our councils were ill-prepared and useless because they were too busy listening to those global warming lunatics. They keep telling us (unsurprisingly wrongly) that horrible winters are a “thing of the past” and that we are in for milder winters.

The councils should stop listening to this “prophetic” rubbish and get a grip, and then hopefully I will no longer see our beautiful country grind to a halt because our councils were ill-prepared.

Alan Lough, Dunbar, East Lothian

Ignore worthless debt arguments

Danny Alexander’s recent claim that Scotland would inherit a “catastrophic” level of debt on independence is laughable, especially given the state of the UK’s finances.

Government and Expenditure Revenue Scotland (GERS) 2009-10 figures show that, including a geographical share of UK North Sea oil and gas revenues, Scotland contributed 9.4 per cent of UK public sector revenue and received 9.3 per cent of total UK public sector expenditure. Scotland therefore generated 9.4 per cent of UK tax with 8.4 per cent of the population – the equivalent of £1000 extra for every man, woman and child in Scotland.

And we know that Scotland’s oil and gas resources represent a trillion-pound asset base.

Scotland has now been in a stronger financial position than the UK as a whole for each of the last five years, and with the official GERS figures show that Scotland contributes more to the UK exchequer than it receives in public spending, it is the UK that is in a “catastrophic” economic situation and is holding Scotland back.

Alex Orr, Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh