Sir, – In the past we have had prolonged power cuts. The three-day week of 1973-74 comes to mind. But our dependence on electricity was much less then. Now it powers and organises everything, and our survival depends on a continuous supply. In today’s world a series of prolonged power outages would have serious effects.
No computers. The internet would cease. No communication. No online banking. No benefit payments. No lottery. No TV or radio. Airports would close and hospitals would have problems. Electric cars would be unable to charge and others unable to refuel. Buses and trains would stop.
Landline and mobile phone coverage would eventually fail. Supermarkets would close and panic buying would start. Water and sewerage – now computerised – would fail.
No light and no heat.
The grid might require a restart that could take weeks.
And in nine months the birth rate will sharply increase.
As we prepare to dispense with continuous fossil and nuclear power in our daily lives, let us all hope that wind and sun and water live up to their green energy promise.
Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross.
SNP must take the blame for ferries
Sir, – When someone from another political party gets it wrong the SNP are always the first to call for resignations, indeed only this week we’ve heard calls for Kwasi Kwarteng to go following his mini-Budget.
Yet closer to home we have yet more evidence of the biggest scandal since devolution and no one has yet to take any responsibility for this disaster.
The two ferries being built on the Clyde is a disaster for Scotland with them being vastly over budget with another £84 million being requested this week. They are five years late on delivery – and there could be further delays.
We found out this week that preferential treatment was given to Ferguson shipyard and they were awarded the contact even though they could not provide a cash guarantee – one of the key criteria for gaining the contract.
The finance secretary states that the evidence will be passed to the auditor general for more investigation. This has now gone beyond the auditor general and the police should be called in, particularly if the allegations of insider dealing are proven to be correct.
This ferry fiasco has all happened under Nicola Sturgeon’s watch yet she and her ministers are still in their posts with no one standing up and taking any responsibility. Can you imagine the uproar if this had happened at Westminister?
If Boris Johnson, a successful prime minister, had to resign because of “partygate” which is immaterial in comparison with what has gone on in Scotland, why is the devolved leader of the Scottish Parliament allowed to continue in her role for so long?
No longer can we hear from the Scottish Government that they take collective responsibility and that lessons will be learned. This disaster has now gone beyond that and if Ms Sturgeon truly believes the buck stops with her, as she has told the people of Scotland, then she needs to resign.
Scotland deserves far better than a Scottish Government that says one thing and does another.
Mhairi E Rennie, Finlayson Street, Fraserburgh.
Parents addicted to state handouts
Sir, – Some of the announcements coming from the Labour Party conference last week were truly astonishing.
A new Labour government intends to offer free breakfast to all primary pupils in England funded by the reintroduction of the 45% tax band for high earners.
We know breakfast clubs are a win-win for most parents. They are relieved to know that their children can have a nutritious meal at the start of a busy day at school.
However, as a parent from an older generation, far from being relieved about this I would have considered myself an abject failure if I couldn’t provide food for my children. Some today are not even able to buy a packet of cereal and milk but can still afford the electronic necessities of the modern parent.
Now the head of one of the teaching unions chips in saying children who are hungry are not in a fit state to learn. What a load of nonsense. In the 1940s we were all hungry, some considered learning important, others didn’t, so for them four meals a day would have made no difference.
Is there any evidence that this attitude towards learning has changed? Continuing offers of free this and free that as we now see in Scotland is leading to a culture of dependency, a population becoming as addicted to government handouts as the drug addict is to their next dose of life-shortening substance.
What has happened to parents’ pride? Dependent on freebies to feed and clothe your children when the greatest satisfaction a parent can feel is working, sometimes that few extra hours to have them properly fed and adequately dressed.
There might come a day when proud parents welcoming their newborn will say “that’s our bit done, now it’s up to the government”. The real problem with this promise is in the funding.
Didn’t the shadow chancellor only the previous day, to massive applause from delegates, announce that the same pot of money would be used to train thousands of more doctors, nurses and midwives.
This is primary school politics.
Now boys and girls (or whatever the term is nowadays), if you were in charge of the country where would you get the money and how would you spend it?
Please miss, I would take all the money from the bankers and fat dogs that work in London and get thousands more doctors and nurses so that my granny doesn’t have to wait a year to get her bunions treated.
Well done Rachel, although I think you mean fat cats. What an original idea, you may go on to be chancellor one day.
Ivan W. Reid, Kirkburn, Laurencekirk.
North-east rail link is long overdue
Sir, – Having used the Broch trains in the last week of their operation in 1965, I can appreciate the value of reinstating a railway using a more direct route to Fraserburgh via Peterhead, and I wish the Campaign for North East Rail well.
Government and Network Rail have made a very good job of double-tracking the first part of the line from Aberdeen to Dyce.
This redoubling now extends as far as Inverurie on the main line to Inverness but thereafter there is a chronic lack of passing places on a line which used to be doubled all the way to Keith.
Beyond Keith, the problem is the 18-mile single-track section to Elgin. Development of whisky-related, timber-related and other freight traffic is being strangled by this severe lack of capacity for any additional trains. It is also preventing the operation of passenger trains with a promised hourly frequency and journey time of only two hours.
The route was recognised as being of national strategic importance and ranked as fourth priority project for the whole of Scotland by the Strategic Transport Projects Review in December 2008. The original target date for completion of these necessary improvements announced by Alex Salmond after the Cabinet meeting in Inverness on August 5 2008 was to be 2016-17.
Why is it taking such a very long time to implement this much-needed north-east rail project?
R.J. Ardern, Drumdevan Road, Inverness.
Robust response to blundering Budget
Sir, – Andrew Dingwall-Fordyce’s letter (Press and Journal, October 3) infers the ineptitude of the present Scottish Government by not reacting immediately to what he describes as a “robust” Westminster Budget!
Would that be the same “robust” Budget that sent the value of the pound into freefall? Or the same “robust” Budget that wiped billions off stock market shares? The same “robust” Budget that almost cost millions of pensioners their livelihood if it wasn’t for unprecedented intervention by the Bank of England? Whose intervention, by the way, cost the UK taxpayer more than £65 billion.
Or maybe it was the same “robust” Budget which the Westminster government has just performed a U-turn on!
I presume the response Mr Dingwall-Fordyce was seeking was whether the Scottish Government would also match the proposed tax cut for higher earners, as ensuring that those earning more than £150,000 would pay less tax was the only “robust” part of the Budget.
So maybe by taking a pause for contemplation in order to ensure a considerate, measured and sensible response, the Scottish Government has proven that it is actually fit to govern.
The same cannot be said for the latest Westminster government ministers, who it must be remembered were the least talented left after Boris’ disastrous spell as leader, and have now had to perform their first major U-turn after only weeks in office. Simply unbelievable.
Yet still they have their blinkered followers. How much more pain does the Westminster government have to inflict on the people of Scotland before we all say enough is enough?
Douglas Black, Kingsford, Alford.
Futility of fighting climate change
Sir, – Lesley Ellis accuses Neil Bryce and me of defending the indefensible.
She condemns our opposition to decarbonisation (Press and Journal, October 3).
In fact, we are calling for net-zero and similar policies to be ended so as to save the nation from wasting resources.
Ms Ellis has overlooked the reality of our inevitable national ruin from futile combat against the will-o’-the-wisp of manmade climate change.
Charles Wardrop, Viewlands Road West, Perth.
Starmer flying flag for English voters
Sir, – Keir Starmer at the Labour Party conference, keen to position the party as British with the use of the Union Flag in the lectern and the singing of the national anthem, has failed to understand the subtleties of identity.
Clearly the promise to have no truck with the SNP is designed to appeal to the English voters who well remember the arguments put forward by the Conservatives in recent elections that Labour can only secure power in coalition, and of course that would be a coalition with the SNP.
What Starmer has managed to do at this conference is to isolate many Scots, English, Welsh and Northern Irish who do not identify as British but are still Union supporters.
The most recent Social Attitude Survey indicated that 54% of the population has a strong sense of Britishness, which leaves almost half who do not. The UK is a country where the four nations are subject to a central authority in the shape of Westminster and devolved governments.
Many residents have a British passport but are not flag-waving patriots. Furthermore, a YouGov survey covering the period from December 2019 to September 2022 and canvassing the views of those living in England and Wales, found that consistently around 44% of those living south of the border supported Scottish independence. Labour should be about socialism not patriotism.
Stuart Smith, Forvie Path, Aberdeen.
Real nuclear threat
Thanks to Scott Begbie for having the courage to write about this threat, which so many of us were thinking about, but trying not to voice for fear that this scenario materialised.
We are living under the threat of possible nuclear warfare, which could ultimately come to pass between not only Russia and Ukraine, but spill over to the wider world, should the US and the UN feel under threat from a nuclear attack being mounted.
Could we be looking at a global Hiroshima?
Having seen the onslaught Putin has made on Ukraine, and recently felt glad that the Russians had been pushed back from major parts of Ukranian territory, we have to hope that any reprisals are not of nuclear strength.
It is also good to hear that the Russian people themselves are now rebelling against conscription of so many of their untrained citizens to fight in this needless war. They too are fed up of seeing the bloodshed on both sides which is so unnecessary.
Brian James Cowie.
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