Top Scottish clubs should play in English leagues - Readers' letters

There is a solution to the annual quick and embarrassing exits of our top clubs from the elite European football tournaments.

An immediate campaign should be started to have our top four or five clubs admitted to a revamped English league set-up.

Almost certainly they would all have to be admitted at Championship level. Many in England would be unhappy but with proper political will and backing and getting Sky and BT on board, it could be achieved. Then they would have more equal access to the multi-millions involved.

They would find their feet I believe relatively quickly, within a season or two. The Scottish national team would undoubtedly benefit also. Swansea and Cardiff already play in the upper English divisions. In Spain, Barcelona are an integral part of the Spanish premier league despite the Catalonian base. The teams left behind would form a fiercely competitive premier league and continue to gain access to the lesser European competitions.

Could the likes of HIbs and Hearts compete in England?

It is a win-win situation. All that is required is the will and for the inward-looking and self-obsessed thinking to go and the momentum will build.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Mental health cuts must be reversed

As a coalition of organisations that supports children and young people, many of whom have mental health problems, we share the concerns of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland relating to proposed cuts of £38 million to planned mental health spending.

We were already experiencing a mental health emergency in Scotland even before Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis took hold. These have worsened an already devastating situation for many children and young people, resulting in a perfect storm of challenges.

It therefore beggars belief that, in the face of a mental health tsunami, the Scottish Government is set to cut the mental health budget. Combined with this, an already tight budget will have to stretch even further to keep pace with soaring inflation.

With the resultant personal cost to those concerned and their families, as well to the economy overall, we need to invest more, not less, in our mental health services. The situation we are currently in could potentially lead to a lost generation of vulnerable children and young people who are missing out on the support they vitally need.

To address this, we must ensure our mental health services are protected and would urge the Scottish Government to reconsider these cuts and commit to increase investment, ensuring that our children and young people receive the high-quality care they need, when they need it.

Kenny Graham, Lynn Bell, Stephen McGhee, Niall Kelly, The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, Edinburgh

Not in my name, Ms Braverman

The Tory Party concept of a “compassionate country” has resulted in the UK falling, on a population basis, to 19 in the list of 20 European countries receiving asylum applications.

The “sixth wealthiest country” in the world has probably benefitted most financially from the exploitation of the natural resources of countries from which the asylum seekers have fled and from arms sales into war-ravaged regions where many of them have lost their homes and family members.

I am dismayed that the current "constitutional arrangements” enables successive UK Governments, with seemingly heartless Home Office Ministers such as Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, to represent my view on the treatment of fellow human-beings desperately seeking refuge.

These people do not represent my values nor the ambitions for the future society I wish my children to inhabit.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

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