Today’s correspondents focus on green energy, the prospect of Scottish independence and the RSPB, while the Queen’s visit to Ireland continues to concentrate minds.
SNP energy policy will be economic disaster
Sir, – John J. Marshall in his item Dreams blown away (Courier, May 18) nails the essential flaw in the SNP’s green policies wind farms are potentially an economic disaster, swallowing up billions in taxpayers’ money without providing the minimum power to keep our industries, commerce and homes going.
I never cease to be amazed at the blindness of the Scottish people especially the middle classes-as they vote more and more enthusiastically for a party which will spell catastrophe for Scotland.
Perhaps what was needed to restore sanity to the Scots was this overwhelming victory for the SNP at the polls. Now they will be able to race ahead with all their pet projects, at the end of which they optimistically expect to get a majority vote in a referendum for independence.
Some unionists want an early referendum, thinking they have a better chance of getting a no vote for independence now, rather than later.
The opposite may be the case. After three or four years of more and more wind farms and the closure of coal, oil and gas power stations, the lights will begin to go out and our industries will be shut down for two or three days a week for lack of power.
Perhaps then, not only will Scots vote to stay in the union, but to get rid of the party with the most unrealistic and destructive policies ever.
We have given them enough rope, now let them hang themselves.
When I was a lad growing up in Dundee in the 1930s and 40s, the Scottish Nationalists were regarded as a joke. Now the joke’s on us.
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Merely returning to status quo
Sir, – I am becoming increasingly irritated by both members of the Scottish Parliament and newsreaders of the BBC who keep saying an independent Scotland would mean the break-up of the United Kingdom.
As all Scots schoolchildren should know, the United Kingdom came about by James Vl of Scotland gaining the English throne as James l in 1603.
What the SNP wish to do is repeal the act of the union of the parliaments which took place in 1707, bringing the relationship between the two countries back to what it was between those two dates which includes many dramatic confrontations between Scotland and England such as the proclaiming Charles II king of the Scots, something which brought Cromwell rushing up to Scotland, and led, among other things, to General Monk’s assault of Dundee.
However, I am sure the relationship between the kingdoms in the 21st century would be much more cordial.
Frank D. Bowles.37 Albany Terrace,Dundee.
Ireland should be apologising
Sir, – The Queen’s visit to Ireland seems to have engendered a demand that she “apologise” on behalf of the British nation for|the imagined wrongs suffered in times long gone.
I would like to see the Queen receive an apology for wrongs suffered in more recent times.
The shameful stigma of Ireland’s “neutrality” in the second world war culminated in the Irish president walking into the Germany embassy in Dublin to deliver his personal condolences, and those of the Irish people, on the “sad occasion” of Hitler’s death.
Since the end of that war there has been tacit support of IRA criminals including charges of IRA gun-running against one Irish president and the protection of numerous murderers by the Irish courts.
Furthermore, the Queen’s visit is at the request of the Irish Government and I would therefore expect to have seen her treated as an honoured guest with the courtesies normally accorded to her rank.
Instead I have yet to see her greeted with even one curtsy and some of the bows offered by men were more in the nature of a head-butt. Neither have I seen any reference to the undoubted and remarkable courage of the Queen in accepting this invitation with all its attendant dangers.
William Oxenham.5 Easter Currie Place,Currie.
Europe calling all the shotsSir, – I wonder how many heard the response the Prime Minister gave in Parliament recently, when an MP asked why the air ambulance has to pay VAT on its fuel but lifeboats don’t? Mr Cameron merely said that it was “because of a European Union ruling.”
Meanwhile, on the Today Programme, while discussing the McNulty Review on railway funding, the interviewer implied it was stupid to separate rail operating companies from the network operator.
He was persistent until told by Phillip Hammond that the separation is a matter of EU law. End of scrutiny.
If our MPs had any bottle, there should have been uproar in the House about how the British government meekly bows to Brussels.
How pathetic our parliament has become. If it is powerless to let the vital air ambulance service off paying VAT or deciding how our railways are run, what is the use of our MPs?
Peter Adams.61 Dunrobin Road,Kirkcaldy.
RSPB priorities have changed
Sir, – According to a recent report, the RSPB is now officially a green campaigning group, alongside Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.
I wonder how many of those who pay their subscriptions to the RSPB realise they are supporting an expensive government policy of carbon reduction by such means as wind turbines that ruin our landscape, and that the protection of birds now seems to be a secondary consideration?
Malcolm Parkin.15 Gamekeepers Road,Kinnesswood.