The UK Supreme Court has confirmed that under the Equality Act, sex means biological sex. That legal clarity is directly relevant to her case – and it is for the tribunal to decide how it applies to the facts.
We may all have our own view of Ms Peggie’s character. However, there is a world of difference between forming a personal impression and ruling on a legal claim. By dwelling on old allegations, Mr Mackay’s column risks turning the court of public opinion into the court of final judgment. That is to no-one’s advantage.
You do not have to excuse regrettable remarks to see the bigger point: the question now is whether NHS Fife acted lawfully and fairly. That should be decided upon by assessing the facts of the matter not the characters of those involved.
Tim Purdon, Kilmarnock.
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Be realistic on benefits
Catriona C Clark (Letters, August 2) praises Scotland’s Adult Disability Payment (ADP) for being “kinder” and “more compassionate”, but sentiment does not pay the bills. At a time when Scotland faces very sluggish productivity, a shrinking working-age population, and one of the heaviest tax burdens in the UK, expanding an already expensive benefits system without limits is not just reckless, it is utterly unsustainable.
The shift from the DWP to Social Security Scotland has been heralded as a moral triumph, but we cannot ignore the harsh financial reality beneath the rhetoric. A system designed to be easier to claim and more generous in scope inevitably invites rising demand. And that is exactly what we are seeing: more claimants, higher pay-outs, and spiralling costs with no clear plan to keep them in check. This is not just a question of budgetary strain, it is a blueprint for long-term economic decline.
Those who champion this model rarely acknowledge the trade-offs. Money spent sustaining an ever-expanding benefits system is money not spent on education, infrastructure, policing, or NHS frontline services. The idea that kindness justifies any cost is naïve at best and dangerously irresponsible at worst. We risk encouraging dependency rather than resilience, entitlement rather than empowerment. A benefits system that demands nothing and gives endlessly is not compassionate, it is corrosive to our society.
Worse still, this trajectory is unsustainable. Audit Scotland and other watchdogs have already raised red flags about affordability. Yet instead of addressing these concerns, we hear more calls for expansion, more moralising, and no concrete strategy. We are being asked to applaud our own descent into fiscal recklessness.
Yes, the welfare state should absolutely protect the most vulnerable. But that protection must be rooted in realism. If the Scottish Government refuses to confront the economic consequences of its choices, it will not be remembered for its compassion, but for its complacency as the safety net it built collapses under its own weight.
David Roxburgh, Glasgow.
Glad of free prescriptions
In response to Alan Ramage’s criticism (Letters, August 4) of Nicola Sturgeon scrapping prescription charges (now almost £10 per item in England) I believe that Ms Sturgeon fully deserves praise for ensuring that patients in Scotland are not charged for the medicine they are prescribed by their doctor, and are no longer in a position of having to select the item of medicine they need the most because they can’t afford the rest.
In his letter of the same date Peter Wylie writes: “It is notable that the list of ‘achievements’ by Nicola Sturgeon given by Ruth Marr all involve her spending other people’s money”. Does he know of any leader of a government who doesn’t spend other people’s money?
Ruth Marr, Stirling.
Give us same rights as NI
Some clarity for Alan Fitzpatrick (Letters, August 5): Scotland should be in the same constitutional position as Northern Ireland. Any constitutional change for Scotland, as with Ireland, would then be an interpretation of opinion polling and would be a matter of legal statute, not dependent on the vagaries of the electoral system or party political flip-flopping.
I suggested an impartial Commission to help with advice (it could be made up of Commonwealth judges), rendering my and Mr Fitzpatrick’s opinion an irrelevance.
Scotland is subordinate to Westminster on every aspect of governance, and Westminster has used the Scotland Act to supersede the previous understanding of Scotland’s “place” within the UK.
Does Alan Fitzpatrick think a border poll in Ireland should require a two-thirds majority, or is it only Scotland?
GR Weir, Ochiltree.
Scotland, unlike England, has free prescriptions (Image: PA)
Double standards on Palestine
Alan Fitzpatrick (Letters, July 31) uses the catch-22 of saying Palestine doesn’t exist as a state to oppose recognising it as one. The Israeli government won’t voluntarily allow one and is currently wiping Palestinians off the map. So recognition, and total sanctions on [[Israel]], must come first, to force the US and [[Israel]]i governments’ hands.
He suggests Hamas being classed as terrorists by the UK Government also makes a Palestinian state not viable. An amazing double standard while the IDF mass murder and starve civilians and children to a hundred times the number Hamas murdered on October 7 and counting. Is murdering civilians while having your own state and regular military in some way less bad than non-state armed groups doing the same?
Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian Authority legislative elections despite its crimes, as the Likud party and others were elected by [[Israel]]is despite theirs. [[Israel]] and its allies refused to accept the 2006 election result and sanctioned the Palestinian Authority, encouraging Fatah’s refusal to form a joint government with Hamas. [[Israel]], Egypt and the US then collaborated to arm and train Fatah gunmen for a military coup attempt which even former Bush administration official David Wurmser said Hamas was pre-empting when it seized power in Gaza in 2007.
Hamas has already said it will give up governing Gaza to technocrats appointed by the Palestinian Authority if Israel ends the war and the IDF leaves Gaza. Even IDF intelligence assesses Hamas can’t be eliminated entirely. Demanding its elimination, or an unconditional surrender it will never make, or for it lay down its arms without a Palestinian state existing first, plays into the hands of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich who are using it as a cover story for a war to kill or remove all or most Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.
However given the likelihood that no recognition or sanctions will end the war while Trump and Netanyahu are in power, the UK and other governments should also take in far more refugees from Gaza so enough Palestinians survive to have a state one day.
Duncan McFarlane, Carluke.
We must insist on urgent action
In your article “Retired Israeli security officials call for an end to conflict in Gaza” (The Herald, August 5) it is maintained that “polls around the world suggest that public opinion is increasingly negative about Israel, which is putting pressure on Western leaders to act.”
The commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has recently said “people in Gaza are ‘walking corpses’” with “most of the youngsters the UN sees [being] emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don’t get the treatment they urgently need”.
Israel is becoming a pariah state in the eyes of many. We, the people, must demand that drastic action be taken by our government immediately. There must be no stopping the tide of public opinion, which is turning out to be a “weapon” of significant value.
Our religious communities, particularly the Church of Scotland, our national church, ought to be making its voice more loudly heard. It should be leading the cry for “justice, peace, and dignity for all” in Israel and Palestine as proclaimed by Rabbis for Human Rights.
John Milne, Uddingston.