MAIL IN PRINT . . . AND ONLINE

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Oct 5, 2008

We don't need race advice from Bradford

I AM surprised that a professor from Bradford University, Tom Gallagher, should be wasting his time criticising the SNP's Muslim policies (Sunday Herald, September 28). Surely he would be better engaged striving to heal the rift between the Muslim and white population on his doorstep in Bradford rather than attacking the SNP. Bradford has had its share of race riots. There have been none in Scotland. I suspect that his attack on the SNP is an attempt to introduce religion into the political arena in Scotland.

Does Gallagher not realise that the day of the Labour and Tory parties using religion to win seats in Scotland is, thankfully, over? Scots are not taken in any more by the divide and rule propaganda of the Unionist parties. The Western Isles is a good example of how Scotland has moved on. There Angus B MacNeil, a Roman Catholic, sits at Westminster, voted into parliament by the Protestant majority in the islands, many of whom are members of the Free Church of Scotland.

Donald J MacLeod Bridge of Don Aberdeen

Art and the artists

IMAGINE the nonsense Linda Fabiani's description of her plans for Scottish culture would seem if the word "artists" were to be expunged from Alan Taylor's article. Now picture legislation meant to implement her vision, but phrased with precisely such a deliberate, unabashed and glaring omission.

This was the Creative Scotland Bill, defeated in the last days of the previous parliamentary session.

Fabiani says we must "truly recognise the worth of and value of artists" and asks "what is it that artists need to fl ourish?"

Yet the bill she proposed did not place artists at the centre of Creative Scotland.

Indeed, its authors preferred a focus on "skills, products and processes" so as not to exclude certain creative entrepreneurs and industrialists, the support of whom would form a major part of Creative Scotland's remit (though Scottish Enterprise begged to differ at the time). Does this betray a disconnection between the minister and her staff?

Did she misunderstand what it was that she attempted to bring into being earlier this year? A cultural agency charged with greater responsibilities than both the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, but offered considerably less than their combined budget; a profi tminded body founded on principles that simply don't apply to the working models of the majority of Scottish artists .

We are now told that Creative Scotland's inception will be folded into the larger Public Reform Bill to be steered through parliament by John Swinney.

Presumably his stewardship is a response to the lamentable financial memorandum that was the last bill's undoing. The SNP are citing "consultation fatigue" as the reason for their haste - Fabiani does so here, Pete Wishart MP did so when he spoke at our AGM earlier in the month - but that feeling may yet become utter dismay, as the arts sector awakes to find itself "identified, supported and developed" by an agency indifferent to the artists who are our cultural wellspring.

Terry Anderson, President Scottish Artists Union Glasgow

Men are victims too

WE must point out a key omission from John Bynorth's article on rape crisis services on September 28. The Rape Crisis Scotland helpline provides support to both women and men who have experienced sexual violence. Since our helpline opened last year on October 11, we have responded to 122 calls from male survivors of sexual violence.

Your article was misleading, and will have given any man reading it who has experienced sexual violence the very clear impression that there is no point contacting our helpline for support.

Sandy Brindley National co-ordinator Rape Crisis Scotland Glasgow

Credit and debit

IAIN Macwhirter's appraisal of the current banking crisis in the Sunday Herald of September 21 was accurate.

This crisis has been brought about by irresponsible and greedy bankers.

Mortgages of 100per cent and over, mortgages of five times (and more) of gross annual income, and mortgages given to people on the expectation that property prices would continue to double every four or five years, were simply stupid.

One additional example for you is that a part-time Highland general practioner friend was offered a personal loan of over GBP500,000 by HBOS a year ago.

A year later, as credit massively tightened, his entire medical practice was threatened, with its running overdraft being limited to GBP25,000. Both offers were absurd.

Current credit restrictions will affect many decent, hard- working families in the Highlands who are trying to buy their first house.

Meanwhile, there will be a long-term effect of this situation. Many of the middle and senior managers within the financial sector will have received bonuses of millions of pounds during these greedy, irresponsible years.

In time, we will see some of them coming up to the Highlands to buy large estates, with their arrogant, selfish views on resource ownership and narrow views on conservation. They all need to be named and shamed so that we will know them when they arrive.