One law for Boris and friends another for us - your views

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One law for Boris and friends another for us

As the 800 unelected members of the House of Lords receive their £323 a day attendance allowance tax free, then why not the one-off £500 thanks to our health and care workers (John McLellan column, December 3)?

It is the UK government that collects income tax in Scotland, which is sent to London, reconciled and a sum remitted back to the Scottish government two years later.

In addition, the National Insurance element will go directly to the UK government.

Contrary to what John McLellan claims, the Labour First Minister of Wales also called on the UK government not to tax the extra payment, enabling poorly paid social care workers to keep the full amount.

Our essential public sector workers are better paid in Scotland, while Rishi Sunak insists on a pay freeze in England but won’t trigger a claw back of the excessive profits made by his Tory friends who received lucrative Covid contracts without any tendering process.

Mary Thomas, Watson Crescent, Edinburgh.

No 10 is out of touch with the rest of us

“The UK has spent more money fighting coronavirus than almost all comparable countries but still languishes towards the bottom of league tables of economic performance in 2020 and deaths caused by the virus”, writes The Financial Times.

Why is this? The government appears to be semi-detached from the rest of us, out of touch with the ordinary realities of life. Even the Christmas regulations look to be designed for Home Counties Tory voters.

Rishi Sunak envisages clawing back billions from ordinary people once the pandemic is over, yet the Audit Commission state £18 billion has been distributed in undocumented contracts to government ministers and Tory MPs’ cronies. Even Matt Hancock’s next door neighbour. One rule for the entitled, another for the rest of us.

According to the lowest estimate, 58,000 people have died from coronavirus so far, and yet Old Etonian entitlement still dominates the whole government. Boris Johnson is unwilling to sack ministers, even when they are considered to be bullies or totally incompetent.

Government is now seen as a gravy train for hangers on. Insiders had a special VIP channel so that cronies of Tory MPs and peers could access such contracts much more easily.

Remember, this is a government that was reluctant to provide meals for vulnerable hungry children.

Andrew Milroy, Trowbridge, Wilts.

SNP fantasyland of fairytale giveaways

The SNP seem to be living in a fantasy world with their proposed fairytale giveaways.

For example, free bus travel for under 19-year-olds, free school meals for primary school children, introduction of a four-day working week, but with no mention of the self-employed or those on zero hour contracts.

Then there are the Christmas bonuses for the well deserved NHS workers and then the one off payments for low income families. These vote-buying proposals are all very good and well, but in a real world, they will come at a cost to the hard-pressed tax payers and other essential services.

This is not the first time the SNP have made fantastic election promises only to renege on them after being elected. A prime example was their manifesto promise to overhaul the unfair and outdated council tax and then renege on it big time.

Alan Chambers, The Murrays, Edinburgh.