Monday’s correspondents discuss subjects including green taxes, renewable energy, child poverty and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Green energy policies will cripple ScotlandSir, Stefan Morkis’s report on renewable energy (June 9) made chilling reading.
It has been obvious for some time now to any logical mind that the Scottish Government’s power policy is going to bring this country to its knees but seeing the actual costs to the consumer in black and white is nothing short of horrifying.
The most telling part of his report concerned the payments of £900,000 to six wind farms earlier this year to switch off their turbines because the grid could not absorb the energy being produced.
Paying nearly a million pounds to stop the flow of electricity? That is sheer madness.
It is no wonder we are facing massive increases in our fuel bills.
With oil and gas prices soaring, it would in any case be costing us more to heat and light our homes and to keep our industries functioning but to make the situation worse by forcing consumers to subsidise the unreliable and intermittent power supplied by wind turbines is beyond belief.
Nuclear power stations are the only way forward and until our blinkered political leaders see sense and start building them again, we must keep our coal, gas and oil-fired power stations in being and continue to use them until nuclear power can take over completely.
Meanwhile, the construction of new wind turbines must cease right away and saner arrangements made for the distribution of the electricity produced by existing turbines.
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.Punitive power chargesSir, It has been reported that last week’s shock increases in charges for gas by Scottish Power will add about £300 to the average household energy bill but domestic consumption is only about half of what is consumed by commercial and industrial enterprises whose increased costs will also be passed on to these same householders.
Each householder is thus facing a total additional annual expenditure of £900, and since there are 25 million households across the United Kingdom, the total additional cost is £22.5 billion.
Only a very small fraction of this amount is due to the increased wholesale price of gas.
The rest is required, as has been admitted by the supply companies, to pay the impending carbon emissions tax on their fossil fuel stations and to provide the capital they intend to invest in the multitude of additional pylon lines and sub-stations required to service their highly profitable wind farms which are already subject to a separate subsidy costing consumers about another £2 billion a year.
These are all so-called green taxes which provide us with no benefit and for which we have absolutely no real need to pay. Why then are they being imposed upon us?
William Oxenham.5 Easter Currie Place,Currie.Return of Left’s shrill voiceSir, The Archbishop of Canterbury delighted his hosts at the left-wing Spectator magazine last week by using its guest editorship as a bully pulpit to lash the coalition government over its programme of reform.
He wrote of the “bafflement and indignation” felt by the nation that the coalition had reviewed health, education and social welfare and was proposing some changes.
I find it breathtaking that this unelected primate who is also an unelected member of the Lords has the gall to accuse the coalition government of being undemocratic.
My understanding is that the government was elected to tackle our chronic problems in health, education, welfare and the economy and this is what they are trying to do.
Dr Rowan Williams’s hissy fit reminds me of the endless church rants against Margaret Thatcher and I do not recall much shrieking from him about the elected dictatorship of New Labour.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.Scandal of child povertySir, The recent BBC documentary called Poor Kids must surely be a wake-up call for every government department in this country and decision makers across the length and breadth of Scotland and England.
We witnessed that some of our future generation are growing up in conditions that would have a farmer arrested for animal neglect.
We can dish out foreign aid to every dictator and to countries who use the money to further their nuclear ambitions. But, here in the United Kingdom, there are children suffer appalling lives.
How many employees of Scottish local authorities are on wages in excess of £100,00 a year? We are told continually it is necessary to pay this type of salary to attract the right people.
These “right people” seem oblivious to the destitution on their doorstep or do they not care?
It is hard to believe that in the 21st century we still have the type of poverty made infamous by Charles Dickens. Children born in this country surely have priority over any foreign migrants as they are the ones our existence will depend upon in 20 or 30 years’ time.
We are exceptionally good at telling other nations how to live, yet we are failing the very lifeblood of this country.
I hope there is a follow-up to this documentary a year or so from now to show the vast improvements that have been made.
Bill Duthie.25 St Fillans Place,Dundee.
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