Cammy Day , leader of Edinburgh Council, is so dismissive of challenges to the proposed visitor levy. Almost everywhere I have visited that has a levy charges a flat rate of perhaps one pound or a few euros per night. Easily absorbed in a holiday budget.
Edinburgh however, totally oblivious to the fact that money spent on a levy is money that would otherwise be spent on meals or accommodation and the jobs they support, proposes a robber baron’s charge of seven per cent. Mr Day says “tourist expect a small fee”. They do indeed, but on which planet will Mr Day find seven per cent of a hotel bill “a small fee”? It’s daylight robbery and shows both the disdain the council leader has for visitors, and unbelievable greed.
Not content with destroying short-term lets, Mr Day will now kill the hospitality sector and drive tourists elsewhere. He should go away and think again, preferably after reading about the killing of the golden goose. Brian Barbour, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland Tourist tax fair The news that wealthy hotelier Rocco Forte opposes the tourist tax is hardly surprising.
He is a member of the super rich millionaire/billionaire class who find it hard to fathom what the lives of ordinary people are like or indeed how much impact a tourist tax might make on the lives of Edinburgh’s people, providing much needed financial support to maintain the fabric of our beautiful city. Is he worried that people who can afford to stay at the Balmoral couldn’t afford a levy? Or is it that people in that bracket are so unused to contributing their fair share that this minimal additional charge might seriously affect their ability to purchase yachts, Bentleys or homes with built-in cinemas and sports facilities? On a recent trip to Holland and Belgium there was a tourist tax at every hotel,which my travelling companion and I were happy to pay. Marjorie Thompson, Edinburgh Misguided protests The Edinburgh Book Festival has cancelled its association with Baillie Gifford , an investment management firm which has provided loyal support for 20 years.
Why? First Greta Thunberg cancelled an appearance last year because Baillie Gifford had investments in fossil fuel companies. This was followed by threats of disruption by other climate change activists and groups who did not approve of Baillie Gifford investing in firms that made armaments that were being shipped to Israel to help their genocide in Gaza. The result is that the Book Festival will, unless it can tap other sources of financial support, struggle in future years.
This may be the last Edinburgh International Book Festival as we know it. I have watched it getting ready this year in the beautiful new Edinburgh University Futures Institute and on the huge patch of grass in its rear and, as someone who lives in and loves Edinburgh, I am grateful to Baillie Gifford for the enjoyment that it has helped to give us, year after year. Do I worry about climate change? You bet I do.
So does our SNP government. But Scotland needs the gas and oil from our few North Sea wells until we have enough green power to allow us to get rid of fossil fuels. Why target a festival which has no direct impact on this issue? As for those who resent the UK sending armaments to Israel, I am with you all the way.
Baillie Gifford do the best they can with the money clients have trusted them with. Their generosity to our Book Festival shows how deeply they care for Scotland and its cultural life. But the inevitable result of their withdrawal will be appeals to the government to make up for it at the expense of the taxpayer.
No way do I wish to pay – possibly at the expense of alleviating the two-child cap – for the self-indulgence of those who have driven away a private sponsor. Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh Exam results “Scottish education has changed visibly, but not noticeably for the better,” was the response to this year’s SQA results. Oh wait, no it wasn’t.
This is actually the verdict of James Scotland, in a 1982 article, ‘Scottish Education, 1952-1982’. What has not appeared to change, is the enthusiasm for belitting the state of Scottish education. This year’s exam results are.
.. meh.
Yes, the attainment gap widened a little, (17.2 per cen t this year, a return almost exactly to the pre-Covid 2019 number of 16.9 per cent).
Considering relative poverty is 24 per cent pretty consistently in Scotland, what this tells you is...
poverty is really hard to solve and schools are pretty static. Perhaps our staff, young people and society would be better if we focused more on what our schools do well – just look over the border to see what a bad education system looks like. Yes, we need an industrial strategy which includes education.
But we also need to resist these persistent murmurings about ending free education for our school leavers. That ambition – education is a right, not a privilege – is a noble Scottish tradition and needs to be cherished. There are two sides to this.
The first is that taking away free tuition is morally reprehensible, the second, it is economically illiterate. We need problem solvers; creative thinkers; global citizens capable of adapting to new skills and technologies while working independently and as part of teams. We do not need rote learning and fact acquisition.
That way lies obsolescence, economic disaster and replacement by AI. Whichever argument is more persuasive, morality or pragmatism, we should be spending big on education, not sowing class division. Peter Newman, Tain, Highland Testing times Not surprisingly, arch anti-SNP writers Martin Redfern and Jill Stephenson jumped on the slight drop in latest Highers’ grades and a widening of the “attainment gap” (which has been reflected in exam results in England and Wales) to subjectively denigrate Scottish education ( Letters, 8 August ).
No mention was made of the impact of the global pandemic or that a record number of Scottish students secured places at Scottish universities this year with a record number of students from deprived areas obtaining university places. It was interesting to read the comments of Jonathan McBride ( Perspective, 8 August ) advising that there should be less emphasis on exams in our education system, particularly with regard to the amount of time devoted to preparing for exams at different levels, noting that “there is more to education than exams”. Jenny Gilruth, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, openly stated that exam results returning to pre-pandemic levels is “not good enough”, but surely our children deserve a balanced debate on education going forward.
not simply partial attempts to undermine much of the good work of the SNP Scottish Government. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian Brush up Gaelic The latest news about the number of native speakers of Gaelic in Scotland who speak the language as their first language is truly alarming for those who are concerned about its potential loss. I have heard figures as low as ten per cent of the oft-quoted 60,000 speakers being the true number.
Now, labelling police cars and ambulances with made-up Gaelic words is firstly very irritating for those of us who don't live in an area of Scotland which ever spoke Gaelic, but secondly, is also a squandering of precious funds. I would suggest that the relevant body – is that Highlands and Islands Enterprise? – could take a leaf out of the Irish book from the 1940s, I believe. They started a campaign, which soon earned a large amount of amusement both inside the Republic and elsewhere.
The campaign slogan was, I am told: “Brush up your Erse!” I don’t know how successful the campaign was, but it certainly attracted attention! Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh Perfect English, like I’m not sure which Olympic interviewee correspondent SR Wild was mocking in his letter ( 8 August ), deriding their overuse of the words “like” and “you know”. Whoever it was, they had just won a medal, and were overjoyed. I’d be interested to know if SR Wild has ever won a medal, and, if so, did they have a speech prepared, written in perfect English? Carolyn Taylor, Broughty Ferry, Dundee Look to the skies How refreshing to be transported back, or perhaps more accurately, forward, in time, all the way to Gobedki Tepi in Northern Mesopotamia 10,850 years ago ( Scotsman, 8 August ) and reputedly the earliest calendar.
In our despicable obsession with immigration and Islamophobia, spawning so much bile in far too many of our city streets, it is salutary to be reminded of these ancient times populated by "keen observers of the skies” in those critical periods way back then when meteorites threatened the very existence of our fragile planet Earth. Significantly, archeologists discovered this calendar in temple precincts where worshippers accepted their frailty in the midst of powers much greater than themselves. This much needed perspective of observing the skies has been largely blotted out in city life, replaced by dark violence on our streets.
Perhaps it’s time to replace this impoverishing hatred with that harmonious vision granted by a renewed keen observation of the skies. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Write to The Scotsman We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details.
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