The HeraldLetter to the HeraldI was struck by the quote on your front page (September 17) attributed to one of Mr McConnell's "special advisers". In a groundbreaking statement of faultless logic, he said: "So that is the starting point. What we are currently doing is not working."
Great. So what about the failed approach to poverty and low income? Poverty is more prevalent now than four years ago and the army of working poor grows incessantly. What the executive is doing to tackle this scourge is not working. What about the illegal drugs strategy? Earlier this month Scotland recorded a tragic milestone with a record 382 deaths from illegal drug abuse. The executive's moralistic get-tough approach has delivered more drugs deaths, more drug addiction, more drug-related crime, and more drug-related prisoners. What it is doing is not working.
In the field of dietary ill health, we observe a time-bomb of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related illnesses while the executive makes good speeches but votes against universal and healthy free school meals with milk and water for every Scottish child. What the government of Finland did to tackle the same dietary ill-health problem has worked. What the Scottish Executive is currently doing is not working.
Is this honest approach by the special adviser a welcome and new development in government policy, or merely an empty phrase aimed at bolstering an even more empty and reactionary criminal justice approach, engineered to cater for the insatiable hunger of the reactionary tabloids and not to serve Scotland's communities?
Tommy Sheridan MSP, Scottish Parliament.
