WHILE the BBC and mainstream media coverage of the 2022 Commonwealth Games has been extensive, the simplistic “medals table” does not aid comparisons of performances relative to country populations.
While all the “home nations” fared relatively well overall, looking at gold medals (two or more) won on a population basis, New Zealand replaced Australia at the top of the table with England dropping from second to ninth, Scotland moving from sixth to fifth, Wales from eighth to fourth and Northern Ireland, with five boxing gold medals, from 11th to second.
Total medals won by these countries on a population basis also saw New Zealand ranked at the top, with Northern Ireland second, Scotland third, Wales fifth and England ninth. Perhaps medal tables presented for future Games would better serve the UK general public, as well as the many overseas visitors to be welcomed, if a column was added which based rankings on medals won per million of the population.
Could it be that the BBC and the London-controlled UK mainstream media are not keen to show the relatively much better performances of some smaller nations in spite of limited participation in many team sports?
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
Disrespect! As usual, it was EBC all through the Commonwealth Games, culminating on Monday morning in interviewing two English diving silver medallists throughout the gold medal ceremony for two Scottish gold medallists. They paid lip service by returning later to show an abbreviated ceremony.
Wouldn’t have happened the other way round.
Morag O’Dea
Edinburgh
The fact that the bill to impose buffer zones around abortion clinics is being put forward by a Green MSP does to make it either necessary or wise.
Those of us old enough to remember how we campaigned for a Scottish Assembly in the 70s and 80s will remember how we assembled and marched and protested and carried placards and held a two-year vigil on Calton Hill. That went on both night and day, summer and winter.
All was hopeful: that good Episcopalian, Canon Kenyon Wright, had written the Claim of Right. On cold winter nights a fire was lit to keep the vigilantes warm, wood was ferried in from as far afield as Skye, and a local Catholic priest would sometimes bring us pies. Government did not particularly approve and very occasionally our telephone lines would be tapped by the police, but all was allowed.
However, if this bill is passed, although assembly and placards and protests and prayer may still be allowed in public in England, they will not be tolerated in Scotland. Precautionary arrests, imprisonment and heavy fines will for the first time be in order in this country. This puts us on a level with laws of prevention in Russia or Belarus.
The pro-life movement for a culture of life, like the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, is both logical and justifiable. It is not aggressive and does not harass or threaten anybody. It bears witness to an alternative choice for women in difficult situations and it offers them help.
Lesley J Findlay
Fort Augustus
In Monday’s National, Phoebe Harper was “left feeling smug as she finds heading North in an EV campervan a smooth experience in more ways than one”.
I’m pleased that she had such a nice experience, but her trip underlines the fatal flaw of owning an electric vehicle. With a recharge taking anything from 45 minutes to four hours, as she describes in her article, only the fact that there are so few electric vehicles on the road enabled her to complete her journey, albeit taking twice as long as expected due to charging delays.
If all the other vehicles she saw on her trip were also purely electric powered, the queues at the charging points would stretch for miles.
Electric vehicles are a dead-end technology. In fact, to be realistic, if we are to avert a climate catastrophe, we need to remove the need to travel at all, by altering society to a village culture. The means of eating, living and keeping sheltered must be provided within walking distance.
Of course, this isn’t going to happen and probably, by the time conditions are so bad that this course of action is the only feasible way forward, it’ll be too late anyway. I fear for the lives of my grandchildren.
Tony Perridge
Inverness
The unsavoury Ms Truss must be inordinately proud of her ability to attract people like herself to her meetings. To wit, how to receive tumultuous applause by traducing the leader of another sovereign nation and its people. One thing’s for sure, she promises a huge discount on honesty and decency for anyone voting for her Tory Party of today.
Bruce Moglia
Via Email
