If you voted SNP, you cannot complain about welfare cuts
IT is indeed very bad news that 20,000 Scottish children will suffer because of the forthcoming welfare cuts (“May’s squeeze on benefits limit to hit 20,000 children”, The Herald, November 1). What is especially galling is that this situation was wholly avoidable.
In May this year, voters had a clear choice, between two types of Scotland.
One was to maintain current levels of taxation and with them, the known prospect of cuts in public expenditure, including welfare benefits. The alternative Scotland that was offered to the voters was a modest increase in taxation to fund protection for the most vulnerable, including these least well-off children.
In other words, the choice was between the SNP-Tory low-tax, low-welfare model and the Labour social democratic higher-tax, higherwelfare model. Regrettably, the voters chose the more right-wing and less socially just model.
That was, of course, their right; but at the same time every single Scot who voted SNP or Tory has forfeited all right to complain about the path that they chose – in full knowledge of the likely consequences.
In short: if you voted SNP when people needed the protection of a Scottish government that would use its powers to protect them from the Tories, you are to blame. No-one else. Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow. READERS regularly, and rightly, praise Steven Camley’s cartoons. What seems to go unnoticed is the power of page layout. Today we are informed on the front page that 6,733 families are to be denied £40 million in benefits above a report which tells us that roughly the same number of the “super-rich” are being chased for 50 times that amount for unpaid taxes (“Super-rich chased for £2bn”, The Herald, November 1). Do we, the mugs, not even have the right to know the identities of the 10 of our richest untouchables currently under investigation? Duncan Graham, 34 Randolph Road, Stirling. IT is disappointing but not surprising that Damian Green believes that the film I, Daniel Blake “bears no relationship to the modern benefits system” despite his not having seen the film (“Daniel Blake ‘unfair to job centre staff’”, The Herald, November 1). Well, I’ve not seen it either, but as a volunteer adviser at our local branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau and based on numerous reports from friends and colleagues who have seen the film, I can conclude the opposite of Mr Green’s belief.
Week in, week out I meet clients who have suffered the effects of the benefits system. From superficial Work Capability Assessments to spurious sanctions, the benefits system appears to me to be designed to make life as difficult as possible for those who find themselves in a vulnerable position, most often through no fault of their own.
His attempt to discredit the film by suggesting it is “monstrously unfair” to job centre staff is particularly galling. It’s not about the staff, Mr Green, but about the monstrously unfair aspects of the benefits system they are forced to implement. Robin Mather, 23f Eskside West, Musselburgh.