Readers' letters: It’s time to use the ‘sooker-ooters’

Leaf and vegetation on the A70 in Balerno

With so little attention in recent months, David Attenborough could base a series on the insect life making comfortable homes in the layers of decaying vegetation, taking his cameras where Edinburgh Council’s “sooker-ooter” gully-cleaning trucks rarely venture.

The problem is the council only has four of these vehicles to cover hundreds of miles of roads, starved of cash by a tight-fisted SNP Scottish Government which keeps taxes high while squirrelling away millions for an independence referendum they don’t have the authority to hold and the majority of Scots don’t want anyway.

Last month I asked the council leader if he had any confidence that gullies could be unblocked to avoid flooding this autumn and I suspect the answer will eventually be no.

The real blocker that needs a good clear out is the SNP Scottish Government whose centralising diktat starves local authorities of the resources to do the jobs the public expects.

Cllr Graeme Bruce (Con), Edinburgh Pentland Hills

Scotland fighting bad UK welfare policies

Douglas McBean (letters, 8 October) fails to acknow-ledge that since 2013-14 Scottish local authority revenue funding is up by £2.2bn - 22.9 per cent higher compared to 7.3 per cent in Labour-run Wales.

Also, the latest published accounts show that Edinburgh has unallocated reserves of £25m in this year’s budget.

As agreed between the then Labour-dominated Cosla and Labour/Lib Dem Scottish Executive, the historic reason Edinburgh receives the lowest annual grant per head is because Edinburgh is the wealthiest area in Scotland. Also Labour’s expensive PFI long term financing still accounts for 10 per cent of education budgets in Scotland.

The SNP is spending £1.4bn mitigating draconian UK welfare policies, but with limited taxation and borrowing powers, the Scottish government’s budget has been effectively cut by 10 per cent due to UK inflation caused by successive Westminster governments’ failed energy policies.

An independent energy rich Scotland could afford to slash electricity prices and pay better pensions than a failing UK which, outside the EU, is facing long term economic decline.

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh.

Referendums are for use sparingly

The SNP have been quick to criticise Labour with regards to Keith Starmer's acceptance of Brexit, but in so doing exposed its ambiguous attitude to democracy.

I think the SNP believe in the importance of constitutions and democracy. When a prime minister lied to parliament recently the SNP stood by the convention that it is a resigning matter.

But when it comes to referendums they don't seem cut from the same moral cloth. Convention is that referendums are used sparingly. The SNP would like one every five years until they get a yes, then, you won't have any more.

But what about the EU referendum? Is it too soon to have another? Is there a big enough groundswell of opinion wanting a return?

So if we nip in with an EU referendum we will be helping the SNP make the case that referenda should be like buses- you miss one and another comes along. That approach allows radical changes to be legislated for at the whim of a small majority at just one moment in time.

Andrew Vass, Edinburgh.

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