I AGREE we as a country are “knee deep in a mental health crisis” (“Community worker and GP reflect on Covid one year on”, Monday).

But, Covid-19 was not the cause, it was just the last straw for way too many people already living with an illness that was for all intents and purposes ignored by the Scottish Government for so many years.

Just look around Scotland. Look at life in the housing schemes, the painful mess of the inner cities, the completely forgotten tens and tens of thousands of people who are just left to hang as they grow – single parents who are not considered employable, sadly people who fell into a spiralling drug life, to name but a few. Even trying to get a timely GP appointment was at the mercy of a receptionist. Even when you did get the prize of seeing a GP, it was at least another week for blood to be taken, not to mention the many months a person waited for a hospital appointment, just to see if you were unwell or had an illness. This was all before Covid-19 struck.

This article would have you believe GPs work hard to get follow-ups done, not the case. The GP sends a referral yet never chases it up. This is not the Scotland I grew up in.

Fiona Andersson

Posted online

JUST what is the Prime Minister doing building more nuclear weapons, that if we used them would be the end of the world? Do we not all have enough of them to destroy the world ten times over .

The biggest problem is rogue unstable states with unstable people in charge holding nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons did not stop the Argentines from invading the Falkland Islands when the guard ship was withdrawn. Nuclear weapons did not make the Argentinian Army go home. It was troops on the ground supported by the navy. So what is the big idea reducing our troops by 10,000 to save money?

If our well-heeled did not avoid paying income tax and our big-hearted political class and the House of Lords – that needs wound up – stopped sending our tax abroad on a fool’s errand in the form of foreign aid, we could use this money to support industry and the Armed Forces and end poverty here. Poverty is caused by unemployment, something our SNP government fails to recognise by sending the steel work to communist China for the new bridge and now the wind farms. We voted for this despicable party to put Scotland first, they did not.

Instead of reducing our Army, we need to bring back conscription for boys of the indigenous population – one year in the army would turn most of them from silly school boys into men. Something we need from our political class.

John G Phimister

Via email