Scottish government waste money on EU flags - your views

"It is purely a finger up to England”

Scottish cabinet flag up where priorities lie

During this further period of lockdown, imposed on us by our Scottish government, maybe we are having the time now to look at the nonsensical decisions being made on behalf of the whole of Scotland.

Last week, after a three-hour meeting, the SNP cabinet decided to spend an estimated £500,000 of our hard earned money on purchasing and flying EU flags on all government buildings all year.

It isn't that long ago that the union flag was removed from these buildings, in a so called cost cutting exercise, so where was the necessity or need to show this mindless comradeship with an institution of which we are no longer a member?

It is purely a finger up to England and is just another example of the nationalist bigotry being conducted by the Scottish cabinet in our name. If we add the cost of this nonsense to the £512,000 paid to Alex Salmond by this government, that's over a million quid of our money wasted by these incompetents.

While Ian Blackford is heard bellowing for more money every week in the UK Parliament, this lot at Holyrood are dreaming up ever more incompetent ways to waste it.

Wake up Scotland, these decisions are being made in the pretence of your name.

Ronald Arthur, Wisp Green, Edinburgh.

Polling booths are safe as supermarkets

Valerie Stewart (Letters, February 20) thinks the polling stations for the Scottish elections in May will be unsafe due to Covid19. What about the supermarkets?

They require face coverings and two-metre spacing. No-one has suggested that they are unsafe. If the same requirements were introduced for the polling stations would this satisfy Ms Stewart?

Dr John Fleming, Bearsden, Glasgow.

Scotland relies on UK for Covid funding

As we head towards a full year of the United Kingdom dealing with the Covid pandemic, the economic reality is that it is the UK government who have committed nearly £20 billion to support Scotland throughout the crisis.

This includes Scotland’s share of spending on UK-wide measures like the job retention scheme, which has helped to protect a million jobs in Scotland, the self-employed income support scheme, uplifts in Universal Credit and working tax credits, billions in business loans and guarantees as well as an allocation over £10 billion in Barnett consequentials to tackle Covid over the last year and through 2021-22.

These colossal sums only scratch the surface and do not include other increases that have been made to reserved benefits, deferrals to VAT and self-assessed income tax, the VAT cut for Scotland’s hospitality and tourism sectors and a number of other interventions to support jobs and livelihoods.

SNP supporters blithely believe that Scotland could have funded all of this without the broad shoulders of the UK and the financial strength that comes with being part of the Union which means that each person in Scotland presently benefits by over £3600 from being part of the UK.

They ignore the fact the successful vaccine rollout is thanks to the UK government funding the research, procuring and paying for hundreds of millions of vaccines as part of a ‘four nations’ approach.

Since independence would mean the loss of these financial benefits, supporters of the Union should highlight the consequences of these losses .

Tim Jackson, Whim Road, Gullane.