Readers' Letters

There have been only two countries who have so far left the Convention since its formation – Russia who were expelled after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Greece who withdrew during the military junta period of the 1970s and later rejoined after democracy was restored.

Boris Johnson frequently cites Winston Churchill as one of his biggest influences, even to the point of writing a biography on him. The Convention of course was, in part, the brainchild of Churchill in the aftermath of the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime.

Out of the horrific darkness of 20th Century European history, the Convention was one of the legacies built to avoid such barbarism being repeated.

The grounded Rwanda deportation flight EC-LZO Boeing 767 at Boscombe Down Air Base

To withdraw from the C onvention would be an appalling act of democratic vandalism, totally tarnishing the UK’s international reputation and putting every UK citizen in a much more perilous legal position than which they live in today.

Fraser Sutherland, Chief Executive, Humanist Society Scotland, Edinburgh

Women’s specific health issues ignored

Whilst the Scottish Government spends time and money on trans issues which affect less than half of one per cent of our population, the health of biological womenfolk, who are at least 100 times more numerous, at 50 per cent of our population, is being sorely neglected. Women in Scotland are dying unnecessarily every day from the lack of treatment for their specific biological blood pressure and heart issues.

This is Scotland’s major killer, killing three times the number of women who die of breast cancer.

We need the Scottish Government to institute changes in the diagnosis and treatment of women urgently. It is not only that we need a revolution in blood pressure monitoring and treatment by the institution of a proper system of regular testing for all women.

Investment in, and use of new types of scanning equipment and training in digital interpretation for medical professionals is also needed in our hospitals so the specific microvascular systems of women can be seen and properly monitored.

Presently used scanning systems such as angiograms are fine for men with larger hearts and blood vessels but cannot detect the problems common to the associated systems around women’s smaller hearts.

The prosperity of our nation depends on ensuring the health of all of its people.

For too long the biological differences and treatment of the 50 per cent who happen to be women have been ignored. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.

Elizabeth Marshall, Edinburgh

The devil’s in the Indyref2 detail

I’m guessing that Barry Hughes’s letter (News, 15 June) stating that the reason the ten small European Countries are performing better than Scotland, with his punchline that they don’t have the SNP in charge, is either down to Barry failing to read the SNP document correctly, or disingenuous denial on his part.

The document clearly states the “UK” versus the ten countries, not Scotland alone. The devil is sometimes in the obvious detail. I wonder who is in charge of the rudderless UK?

David Gow, Edinburgh

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