Sir, – I fully support columnist Jamie Buchan’s call to return the Stone of Destiny to Perth (It will be a scandal if the Fair City fails to win the Stone of Destiny, Courier, January 6.
I do have some concerns, however, about its new home in Perth City Hall.
Sizeable sums of money will be required to bring this transformative, exciting project to fruition.
The Scottish Government should surely step in from its three headquarters in Edinburgh – at Victoria Quay, St Andrew’s House and Saughton House.
Perhaps the UK Government from its Scottish headquarters in Melville Terrace, with 10 government departments and 3,000 civil servants, could contribute (ever wondered how many of Scotland’s 45,000 civil service jobs are in Perth? Less than 1%).
The National Heritage Lottery Fund would surely be pleased to help with funding from its HQ in George Street.
No, not the George Street in Perth.
Loans from the public sector could be facilitated by the Scottish Futures Trust and checked by Audit Scotland, from their headquarters in, yes, Edinburgh.
The Accounts Commission, the public spending watchdog for local government, based at the West Port, Edinburgh, could keep an eye on council commitments.
Support “in kind” could be given by loans of paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland in you-know-where.
Artefacts for the museum would be gratefully received from the National Museums of Scotland, also in Edinburgh.
Printed treasures could be borrowed from National Records of Scotland, and The Registers of Scotland, which maintains 20 public registers.
We’d have to go to Princes Street and London Road to sort that, though, both in Edinburgh.
The National Library of Scotland, also there, should be good for a loan.
Experts will be required to position the Stone and acronyms to be called upon are RICS and RIAS, respectively the national bodies for chartered surveyors and architects, both with foundations firmly in Edinburgh.
The building itself will come under the gaze of Historic Environment Scotland.
This is the body determined to stop Perth getting the Stone of Scone.
Conveniently, it has two head offices, both in Edinburgh.
The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (and just about every other “royal” and “national” institution) are also Edinburgh-based.
The Stone of Destiny will break records for visitor numbers to the Fair City, so help will be sought from Ocean Drive in Edinburgh, where VisitScotland’s HQ is berthed.
Perhaps it would be easier to move Perth City Hall to Edinburgh.
They’ve got everything else…
Dr Norman Watson.
6 Glebe Terrace,
Perth.
No progress on local retail park
Sir, – There has been no movement on a new retail park at the former Presentation Products Site on the Dundee Road in Arbroath.
The development was approved in October last year and we were told at the Angus Council planning meeting that work on the site would begin within three to six months.
We are now into a new year and a new decade and the people of Arbroath haven’t seen any movement on the site.
I have asked Angus councillors on a number of occasions about when the building work will start but they are giving me no information.
So some people are wondering if it is going ahead or not.
Duncan Young.
25 Albert Street,
Arbroath.
No more money, just debt
Sir, – Les Mackay (Life expectancy falling but worse is to come, Courier, January 6) blames the Conservative government for austerity.
He should look at the bigger picture.
In 1979 Labour left the Conservatives with 28% inflation, which was doubling prices every 30 months.
The cure for that was painful.
In 1997, Tony Blair inherited a modest national debt of £350 billion, and left one of £902bn for the Conservative government of 2010.
In 2008, the combined liabilities of two failed Scottish banks, allowed to run amok by Labour, was 30 times the GDP of Scotland, incurred mainly abroad thank goodness, but their rescue by a Labour government has so far cost the UK taxpayer over £100bn.
The combined effect of these economic events is reckoned to have cost every UK resident £84,000 between 1979 and 2019.
The present national debt nears £2 trillion, and consumer debt is about £1.6tn.
There is no more money.
We are merely managing debt, and we need a lot of austerity if we are to survive.
Malcolm Parkin.
Gamekeepers Road,
Kinnesswood,
Kinross.
Starmer is a non-starter for leader
Sir, – I read in The Courier on January 6 2020 that Dundee’s only current Labour parliamentarian, North East MSP Jenny Marra, is now backing Sir Keir Starmer’s bid to take over from Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.
I have no doubt Ms Marra will be pleased if Sir Keir succeeds.
I am equally sure the Conservative Party will also be pleased because Sir Keir will be just as big a liability to Labour’s chances of success in any future general election as his predecessor.
I am sure the Liberal Democrats will feel that way, too.
The fact is Sir Keir did absolutely everything in his power to stop Brexit from happening and did all he could to deny 17.41 million voters obtaining what they voted for.
How can any politician who has acted in that way in the past ever be trusted again by the public to carry out their will?
Kenneth Brannan.
42 Greenlee Drive,
Dundee.
Drastically cut car production
Sir, – It would seem mankind has yet to learn there is no such thing as a free meal and everything has to be paid for.
The current push towards electrically powered cars is a significant example of a knee-jerk reaction to the increasing problem of toxic emissions from diesel and petrol powered vehicles. While it is all too obvious that our urban streets are rapidly becoming ductways of toxic fumes, the problem will not be ameliorated by the introduction of battery-powered vehicles.
Although such vehicles will bring about a reduction in toxic emissions within certain designated/controlled areas, the problem will not disappear, it will merely be swept under the carpet.
Increasing demand for electrical power for battery recharging will, almost certainly, not be met by wind turbines alone.
The requirement for costly exotic and non-green materials for manufacturing battery- powered road vehicles will only exacerbate the problem.
There is only one way to effectively ameliorate this serious hazard and that is to drastically cut back the manufacture of cars, whether diesel, petrol or battery- powered.
Kenneth Miln.
6 Swallow Apts,
Union St,
Monifieth.
