Readers' letters: Time we had a non-London based TV service

" After independence Scotland will get a TV service that is not filtered through London’s eyes”

Kirkcaldy’s Kathleen Dawson, far right, with team-mates Adam Peaty, James Guy and Anna Hopkin (Pic: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Time we had a non-London based TV

Ian Murray’s blinkered view of the Olympics on TV ("We’d all be losers if SNP ditches gold standard BBC​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​”, News, 5 August) ignores the fact that Eurosport has more extensive coverage of the Tokyo games than the BBC and every other country in the world has coverage.

The BBC continues to short change Scotland, as the latest annual report published last month reveals that only 51 per cent of the funding raised in Scotland is spent in Scotland, compared to 71 per cent in Northern Ireland and 64 per cent in Wales.

The public broadcaster RTE in Ireland only pays £22.5m a year to get the pick of the BBC’s best programmes while ignoring the dross and the licence fee is free for over 70s.

Scotland’s Covid approach has resulted in more vaccinations, fewer deaths, fewer cases and fewer hospital infections per head of population than in England.

Not that you would know that from the BBC coverage as a better performing Scotland and our good news is rarely mentioned on the London centric BBC.

After independence Scotland will get a TV service that is not filtered through London’s eyes.

Fraser Grant, Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh.

Climate change sums are not adding up

China, India and 85 other nations deliberately ignored the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's deadline to submit their "nationally determined contributions" for cutting CO2 emissions as requested for collation and presentation to COP26.

Hopes of a successful COP26 are fast receding, just like the previous 25.

A Climate Change fund of $100 billion a year was promised to developing countries to curb their escalating emissions.

However, developed countries have consistently fallen short of the $100 billion promised. Now South Africa is demanding that this fund is increased to $750 billion a year.

It was always about money for developing nations, not control of greenhouse gases.

There is no chance that China and 196 other nations will deliver pledges that would see net zero by 2050 and global warming kept below 2C.

The UK should tell the delegates that COP26 is cancelled, since countries have not produced their "nationally determined contributions" and that the $100 billion climate cake is off the table, never mind a $750 billion one.

Clark Cross, Springfield Road, Linlithgow.

Tory austerity is not the only version

We have heard ‘’Tory austerity’’ mentioned so many times by the SNP it has become a mantra.

But the truth is that any past Tory austerity there may have been fades into total insignificance when compared to that imposed by the SNP over the past decade-plus.

Nationalist cuts in Scotland have been savage and have been in great part the reason for our country carrying the shameful tag of being by far the worst in Europe for drug deaths. I am not a Tory, but fair is fair.

Equally galling is the fact that in the same period the SNP have found plenty of money for their pet nationalist vanity projects – such as the shipyard they nationalised and is now tottering on the brink.

And the opening of ‘’pretendy’’ embassies abroad or much more expensive ‘’Scottish’’ vaccination certificates; there are a whole host of failed vanity projects that would have paid for the frontline services that may have kept alive many of those who have died.

Alexander McKay, New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh.