Your article featuring the Ferret Fact Service took me back to the 1970s, when I was working in the University of Essex library (Ruth Davidson's schoolchildren illiteracy claim is ... false, The fight against fake news, May 14). Margaret Thatcher had just become Prime Minister, and a great black pall of gloom had descended on the campus. Coincidentally a student came in to request a book which was on short-term loan only, because it was in high demand. The first thing she said was: "Title of book – where will I find that?"
"Try the spine," I said. Then she exclaimed: "Signature, what on earth does that mean?" I could only snap: "Write your name."
This was at the height of the Thatcher era, and it looks horribly as though not much has improved since then, so I do think Rude Davidson would be well advised to drop this particular theme in her champagne.
Margaret Sutherland
Stirling
The recent furore over Theresa May’s comments about “boy jobs and girl jobs” misses one very important point (Voices of the week, May 14). What she said was: “There’s boy jobs and girl jobs, you see.” What she should have said was: “There are boy jobs and girl jobs, you see.”
Given the current controversy over literary standards in Scottish schools, it’s disappointing that Ruth Davidson’s boss, with her Grammar School and Oxford education, isn’t sure about singular and plural.
Douglas Morton
Lanark
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 here