Sir, – Since the nationalisation of Prestwick in 2013 the Scottish Government has spent millions on an airport with no flights and, last year, the purchase of a shipyard with no orders – except for those that drove it to bankruptcy.
According to a parliamentary committee, Nicola Sturgeon’s government oversaw a “catastrophic failure” in the building of two new ferries and should be investigated by Audit Scotland.
The cost of constructing these has risen from £97 million to £200 and the final cost could be £296m.
According to the Sunday Times, “Scotland’s industrial white elephants of Prestwick Airport, Ferguson Marine and BiFab have soaked up about £400 million without producing a profit.
Two are now in administration and the other could be, if we stopped writing the cheques.
If it wasn’t for the progress on the smacking ban and a Hate Speech law that could get you a seven-year sentence for something you say in your home, there wouldn’t be much to show for 13 years of SNP government.
Denis Munro.
Beaumont House, St John’s Place, Perth.
Act now, the high costs of climate change are rising
Sir, – On Friday one of your letter writers mentions that cold weather is forecast for the remainder of this December.
That one forecast is strangely used to deny all future forecasts of the impact of global temperatures rises.
Unfortunately for the planet, climate data indicates that, already, 2020 is shaping up to be one of the warmest of three years ever recorded.
That is despite the slowdown in carbon dioxide production due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
These high temperatures mean catastrophic fires and floods around the globe: Australia, California and even Siberia. Locally, we know that flash flooding led to a landslip on the Aberdeen rail line, killing three people.
And on the west coast, the “here and now” economic costs of continual landslips at the Rest and be Thankful (A83) are huge.
The longer we wait to take preventative action to reduce global temperature rises, the higher the costs.
Taking action now is the easy and cheap way out.
We all need to get on with that action.
Iain MacDonald.
56 Grove Road,
Broughty Ferry.
Virtue signalling and the Climate Summit
Sir, – Boris Johnson is co-hosting a Virtual Climate Summit.
Imagery of scores of African people purportedly uniting to tell the world to act is prominently shown.
I doubt if many poor Africans, where per-capita income in many countries is less than one percent of that in major western economies, are concerned about so-called global warming.
I’m sceptical whether child labourers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are mining cobalt in terrible conditions so that virtue-signalling wealthy people can drive electric cars, are bothered about so-called climate change.
If you have food on the table you have many problems.
If you don’t have food on the table you have one problem.
Geoff Moore.
Braeface Park,
Alness, Highland.
Full marks to Liz Truss for trade deals
Sir, – Full marks to our industrious International Trade Secretary Liz Truss who has been securing trade deals with a swathe of countries happy to trade with Britain.
She has established 57 trade deals worth £193 billion with more to follow. This would have been an impossibility as a full member of the EU.
Surely this must bode well for this country and fly in the face of doom and gloom predictions.
We are the world’s fifth largest economy and it will be in the EU’s best interests to recognise the significance of Britain as a prime trading partner.
We have always been an entrepreneurial country and there must be a raft of such people with the initiative of Liz Truss to ensure our success.
David L Thomson.
24 Laurence Park,
Kinglassie.
