PETER Russell Letters, July 28) endorses the ban on applause. Going back to the Budget Speech earlier this year, I listened to this on the radio in its entirety. Almost every sentence was greeted by the loud braying of “hear, hear” from George Osborne's supporters. I found this irritating in the extreme.
More important, though, is a point that M. Russell omits, and that is that he is endorsing a custom that allows one section of the House of Commons to dictate the tone for all the others. I do not see how that can be right to do this.
To my way of thinking, sections of the House sound very much like well-oiled members of some kind of upper-class club. One answer is to ask for silence while a member speaks. Failing that, surely it must be accepted that applause is a much-used and perfectly reasonable way of showing approval and that to call up visions of Stalin's Terror is far-fetched. I wholly agree with Mhairi Black and wish her all success in dealing with this unruly racket.
Doug Howkins,
61 Forthill Road,
Broughty Ferry, Dundee.
I WONDER if Peter A Russell is suffering a bout of somnambulism, or perhaps somniloquy, in asserting that “our constitution may be a bit eccentric but while it works there is no need to fix it”.
If he is I suspect his compatriots will ensure a rude awakening sometime soon.
Stuart Chalmers,
3 Summerhill Road, Clarkston, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel