Last updated 11:05, Friday, 07 November 2008

As a Scot, who has returned to living in Scotland following 21 years in Carlisle, I was astonished by the vitriol penned by your correspondents (The Cumberland News, October 10) on the situation north of the border.

Reneging on a promise: Gordon Brown

I was also astonished by the inaccuracies in their letters.

Surely, if correspondents take the time to write letters, they should take the time to do some research before making their assertions.

Pensioners in Scotland, regardless of income and wealth, do not receive a free central heating system.

The Scottish Government Central Heating Programme operates a strict eligibility criteria and the programme is not available to all those of pensionable age.

Also the Barnett Formula, which I agree badly needs revision, does not carry tax raised in England to Scotland on a one-way street.

Oil revenue raised in Scotland does not find its way into the Scottish Government’s coffers, it goes direct to the UK Treasury.

From north of the border, it would appear that:

a) The English have no liking for their own government within a UK Federal State and are content to be governed by a UK government.

b) The Welsh, who were originally in discussions for a devolved Parliament but opted instead for an Assembly, are content with the current status quo.

Scotland, on the other hand, has had a Scottish National Party Government for the past 18 months and despite Labour Party predictions the world, as we know it in Scotland, has not come to an end.

The main parties in the Scottish Parliament all agree that there should be greater powers devolved to it.

All parties are in agreement with the late Donald Dewar when he said, at the opening of the first Scottish Parliament for 300 years, that devolution was a process, not an end in itself.

It is Gordon Brown and the current Scottish Labour MPs who are reneging on that promise out of fright and their seeming inability to accept that the Labour Party is no longer the Government on both sides of the border.

Your correspondents may not realise that Gordon Brown and his fellow Scots MPs are just as unpopular in Scotland as they appear to be in the rest of the UK.

Most Scots would be hard pushed to name their MP or the Westminster Front Bench, but they would have a fair idea of who’s who in the Scottish Parliament.

Perhaps your correspondents could make more constructive use of their time by persuading their country folk of the benefits of devolution and why a UK Federal State with an independent Scotland would be beneficial to us all.

PAT SMITH
Larkhall
Lanarkshire