Foreign aid cuts with devastating consequences were always going to pass

It is all very well and honourable for ex-Prime Minister Theresa May and some of her backbench colleagues to talk a good talk, to defy a three-line whip and vote against their government. But being serious, the government with a majority of more than 80 were never going to lose this vote.

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MP after MP highlighted what the cut from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5% would mean to the poorest countries in the world. Make no mistake, this is catastrophic for those who live on the breadline in the midst of the pandemic. Feeding programmes, education for girls, family planning and much, much more will be impacted dreadfully by the actions of those on the government benches on Tuesday.

I wonder if those MPs who voted with the government can truly look their constituents in the face and declare, this action is in my name!

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

REGARDING all this outcry concerning the English supporters booing the young black players on the English team. What’s new?

Cast your mind back to the World Cup held in South Africa, and in the England v Germany match the German anthem was played first, and the English fans booed it down. Then came the English dirge and to the credit of the Germans they did not retaliate, remaining hush. The English commentators never mentioned this international insult either during or after the match.

READ MORE: No need to get offended at Scots adopting ‘anyone but England’ position

Let’s face it, no country’s anthem should be insulted that way, and unlike the internationally popular Tartan Army, English supporters are an embarrassment to their Queen and country. The English anthem should be kept on the English side of the Border as it is basically an anti-Scottish folk song, written in England’s time, of being invaded by a Scottish army. The Hanoverian troops sang it after their reign of terror, burning and pillaging throughout the land. How could it be our anthem? Read its anti-Scottish content.

Robert Burns wrote our anthem, Scots Wha Hae, and our more used second anthem Flower of Scotland is also first-class. Some countries have more than one anthem, the USA for. The Queen song, like her title, is a direct insult to Scottish culture and history. And as our old folk song says, Ye cannie hae the second Liz when the first yin’s never been.

Iain Ramsay
Greenock

IT is interesting to observe the stushie that Italy’s defeat of England in the Euro final has produced.

What is surprising is that the PM Boris Johnson, the Tory party, Nigel Farage and their Brexiteer colleagues are not rejoicing that England is “out of Europe”. Is that not what they have all been striving for? It is worth remembering that the people in England voted to leave the European Union, whereas Scotland voted to remain, so once again England has got what it wanted!

What will be interesting to see is whether or not next season English football teams will be applying to participate in European competitions.

Thomas L Inglis
Fintry

SCOTLAND is the only country in the world that must support its sporting rival. To do otherwise brings accusations of “racism”. Also Scotland is the sole country in the world incapable of self-government. This patronising nonsense is believed by 50% of the population. Nowhere else on Earth would this be tolerated. Yet all of the voices in the media all parrot this line with great hostility.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

GETTING back to the Italy-England game, what I didn’t like was the fact that the English players, as soon as the received the medal from Ceferin, took it off with contempt, showing no respect at all for the Italian players. Talking about sore losers! Where has the famous English “fair play” gone? Down the toilet I think.

Rio Peretti
via email

I READ Alex Leggatt’s interesting letter about football ( Jul 12) but ended up focusing on the use of the word “small”. Alex lists “other small countries ... which have populations roughly on a par with Scotland”, including Iceland. But Scotland’s population is more than 15 times larger than Iceland’s. Is that on a par? It’s almost exactly the scale of difference between Scotland and Germany.

Maybe there is a problem with our use of the word “small”. If you look at a list of 48 European countries ranked by population, Scotland’s 5.45 million comes slap bang in the middle. Among the 27 EU states it is only a couple of notches lower.

That’s medium, isn’t it? Should we be hearing more about a “medium-sized European country”? Of course I’m talking in relative rather than absolute terms, but size is relative: in world terms Scotland’s population is small. In Europe it’s not really. Food for thought?

Alasdair Gillon
Edinburgh