Scotsman Letters: It's time to stop bombing and start talking

The US, in particular, is an accomplice to the massacre. It is sending munitions and bombs for Israel to drop on tens of thousands of women and children. Israel’s President Herzog has said there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, a breath-taking statement. Israel is following the Dahiya doctrine, treating all civilians as military targets. This means women and children are fair game.

The rest of the world is watching this ‘ethnic cleansing’ in real time. The New York Times admits that Israel has killed more women and children in the first eight days of the war than have been killed in Ukraine in 18 months. Which nation is the real monster?

The West has abandoned any attempts at diplomacy in Gaza just as it has in Ukraine, claiming there is no alternative to dropping bombs. This is not only patently false but geopolitical suicide, especially for Israel. The Arab world has said time and again that it is interested in Israeli security which can only be achieved via a political settlement. There have been five decades of UN Security Council resolutions saying the solution is a state of Palestine and a state of Israel, all ignored by the US.

There is a peaceful way out of this nightmare, but it can only happen if the bombing stops and talking starts.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh

SNP court defeat

Humza Yousaf predictably uses his latest court defeat – this time on the SNP administration's flawed gender self-ID reforms – to beat the secessionist drum.

He claims the judge's decision favouring the UK Government is “a dark day for devolution”, and, so his spin goes, Scotland should be independent.

What? The ruling, in fact, reinforces the principle of devolution by further clarifying in court what is either reserved to Westminster or devolved to Holyrood. His party's legislation breached the devolution settlement in that it would have negatively (and, I'd suggest, intentionally) impacted existing Great Britain-wide equality protection law and, thus, have directly undermined powers reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act.

It appears, shockingly, that Yousaf, and Nicola Sturgeon before him, have cynically used the Scottish trans community by illigitimately attempting to push devolution boundaries in this sensitive area of law and social policy.

Rather than indulge in phony posturing about the constitution, Sturgeon and Yousaf must now hang their heads in shame and issue an immediate apology to all taxpayers and the trans community.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Police efficiency

I can only conclude that Douglas Cowe ("It's a crime" Letters, December 9) is not aware that the creation of Police Scotland has allowed for much greater efficiency to be achieved in the administration and support of the police across Scotland than was the case with the eight previous forces.

Police Scotland allows for much greater operational simplicity in allocating and tasking police resources to where they are needed than was the case previously. I can't think of another European country of about the same size as Scotland that does not have a national police force.

I wonder if Mr Cowe is aware that even if police numbers in Scotland were cut by 1,500, and I hope this does not happen, then Scotland would still have more police officers proportionally than anywhere in the UK other than London served by the Metropolitan Police and Northern Ireland served by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

And I am quite sure that Police Scotland officers are just as capable and professional individually as police officers in other parts of the UK.

Andrew Parrott, Perth

Failing education

Lost in the midst of heavily-slanted headlines, ideological education mantras and the faux outrage of opportunists seeking political advantage is rational and objective discussion of the recent UK PISA scores.

Ken Currie (Letters, December 9), like many Union apologists and those who wish to undermine devolution, attempts to ignore reality and blame the SNP and the Scottish Government, and especially the adoption of Curriculum for Excellence (in spite of it having cross-party support), for perceived education shortcomings in Scotland.

As with many, if not most, of the UK’s public services, they have long been in decline and even the negative consequences of Covid cannot mask the fact that UK PISA scores (even with seemingly selective school-sampling in England) have been sliding for more than a decade, which decline, logically, has more to do with UK Government-imposed austerity than the adoption of CfE.

If this is not a valid argument, how does Mr Currie explain that the PISA scores for Labour-run Wales, which has not adopted CfE, have fallen considerably lower than the scores for Scotland in all three primary education measures of reading, mathematics and science?

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Spit ‘n’ polish?

Never is the disparity between the English and Scottish parliamentary budgets more obvious than when the respective residences are shown on television.

No 10 looks like the door has been freshly painted that morning whilst Bute House looks like they've run out of Brasso!

John Dignan, Edinburgh

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