Sir, Warming up for his speech later this month on the simmering issue of us and the EU, David Cameron stated: “The Conservative Party at the next election will be offering people a real change in terms of Europe and a real choice about the change.”
This he follows with an insistence that “Britain is better staying in a reformed Europe than pulling out completely”.
This is the man who said before the last election: “We need a referendum on our relationship with the EU and if that means leaving it so be it.”
Has our PM so little regard for the critical faculty of the British electorate that he thinks he can continue his equivocations about our relations with the EU and not escape being regarded as a con man?
Unless David Cameron jettisons his liberal obsession with EU membership and his internationalist meddlings and consults the real interests of the British people we will have the return of the abhorred “borrow and spend” regime of Miliband.
Alastair Harper. House of Gask, Lathalmond, by Dunfermline.
Fife Council are the biggest culprits
Sir, Once again I find the actions of Fife Council amusing. They are the principal clutterers of pavements since they introduced the latest system of collecting household waste.
In some cases the bins are obstructing the pavements between 6am and 9pm Monday to Friday which, I am sure, is far in excess of the times of those shopkeepers and cafe owners who are also cluttering the pavements.
It shows that once again, the officials control Fife Council and in this instance apparently couldn’t foresee the problems their new bin system would create.
I await their next cock-up.
Allan Murray. 44 Napier Road, Glenrothes.
Obscene waste of money
Sir, There is a certain irony in Christina Kirchner, a Spanish-speaking European colonist of German descent, insisting Britain expelled a native population from the Falklands.
There were only 25 civilian islanders in January 1833 and Britain wanted them to stay which most of them did with the last, a liberated slave, dying there in 1871.
The group expelled was in fact a contingent of 26 soldiers who sailed from Buenos Aires three months before in what was a forerunner of the shambolic events in 1982.
Yet it is surely in the long-term interests of both Britain and the Falklands to resolve this farrago with Argentina, perhaps with joint sovereignty for a number of years.
It is quite clear the UK is isolated on this matter and the cost to the taxpayer, running at £2 billion per annum, is an obscene waste of money at a time of financial austerity.
Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.
A workable solution?
Sir, Critics of the SNP’s renewables energy policy often quote the intermittent production of electricity and that production is often late night or early morning when there is a low demand.
Critics are right to say that this energy is therefore bought cheaply but has to be supported by high-cost nuclear energy at peak demand. Base load is required to act as a back-up. This is capital expensive with diesel and coal power stations idle until needed.
It has long been recognised that an efficient grid system across Europe would iron out these peaks and troughs completely, however it would be years before it is constructed.
New Scientist recently highlighted a workable solution . . . liquid air! Spare energy in off peak can be compressed then released during peak demand with an efficiency of at least 60%.
This is not as good as the 80% achieved in pumped storage in Scotland but means we don’t have to flood half the Glens!
If 700 litres of air is compressed and cooled it liquefies at minus 196 degs C. with a volume of only 1 litre. Much of Scotland’s wealth as an independent country can come from our fortuitous gift of wind,wave and tidal power, but we need to be at the engineering front of this technology. This could provide thousands of jobs jobs that don’t disappear when foreign corporations decide to exploit other workforces.
Cllr Ian Chisholm. 87 Lady Nairn Avenue, Kirkcaldy.
No answer yet to questions
Sir, Two weeks ago, through The Courier’s correspondence columns, I asked Eurowind two questions:
“Where does our power come from to cover base load when the wind doesn’t blow?
“Would your company still be planning to build wind farms if there were no subsidies of any kind?”
Normally quick to refute any criticism of wind power the next day, they have not provided any answers.
Could this be because they don’t have any?
John Dorward. 89 Brechin Road, Arbroath.
Aye, there is always one!
Sir, I refer to the letter from Tim Heilbronn (Not so daft after all . . . January 4) and while I readily agree with his comment, I was basing my comment on facts which I had experienced with melting snow, where railway lines had been washed away by the water during the thaw, both in the UK and Canada.
However, as I said: “There’s aye one!”
In this instance it proved to be me!
John McDonald. 14 Rosebery Court, Kirkcaldy.