Filthy riches

Patrick Harvie (Letters, 25 June ) might be well advised to have another read through the McCrone Report to check up on the benefits that the dirty riches of oil money might have brought to Scotland.

If he wants a more practical assessment he could take a look at Norway, the home of Brundtland Report on sustainability, and compare the figures on life expectancy, standards of education and state pension and so on with Scotland.

Dirty riches they may be, but they are riches nonetheless. Would Mr Harvie prefer pure penury instead?

The oil money could have been used the way forest firefighters use a backfire as a temporary stop, to save the forest.

Would the SNP have had the imagination to use it in this way? I share his scepticism here and, indeed, at times they seem to have all the forward vision of a flea on a dog's backside. However, bearing in mind his own party's obsession with useless wind turbines, that's position that they share.

RON GREER

Blair Atholl

Perthshire