Cameron's choice

Never has a UK party leader been given the chance to do more to protect Scotland's landscape.

All Mr Cameron has to do is stand up at his conference and say the Tories, if asked to form the next UK government, will cancel the Beauly-Denny power-line project.

Forget about planning approvals and ministerial dithering in Holyrood; Beauly-Denny is a UK government project and its funding is entirely dependent on Westminster approval.

We need to make sure that every Scottish MP in the next UK parliament, of every political party, is totally committed to cancelling this project and ensuring that public funds are far better spent in upgrading the existing east coast transmission line and building the first subsea cables down the east or west coast.

With nearly 21,000 formal letters of objection to Beauly-Denny, against a mere 48 letters of support, it is obvious where the votes lie in the forthcoming general election.

As your columnist Bill Jamieson asked in the same issue, why should we sacrifice the unique grandeur of our Highlands to the giant marching pylons of Beauly-Denny and the subsidy-fired ambitions of the giant energy companies?

Mr Cameron is the first UK political leader to be able to tell Scotland whether he is a defender of our landscape and promoter of a rational energy policy or, like all who have gone before, just another politician at the mercy of the multinational energy companies.

Is David Cameron ready to raise everyone's electricity bill, throughout the UK, so that Scottish Energy and Scottish and Southern Energy can disfigure and maim our most precious wild and beautiful scenery?

By Saturday evening we will know whether the Tories are in love with our land and its people, or in bed with the energy companies.

DAVE MORRIS

Director, Ramblers Scotland

Auld Mart Business Park

Milnathort, Kinross