Letter: Faulty alliance

The treaty signed between the UK and France on conventional military co-operation (your report, 2 November) is to be welcomed, and is logical in the current economic climate.

However, it should not be used as a substitute for military capability.

This sort of co-operation is not unusual or new among many other countries, and France and Germany and the Scandinavian countries have a long history of working together successfully.

Of course, the "auld alliance" between Scotland and France is an even older example of such co-operation.

This agreement does not fill the gap which has been created by the decisions in the strategic defence review to scrap Nimrod, and which has left the UK without its vital maritime reconnaissance fleet.

Alex Orr

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh

How on earth, without the exigencies of wartime, can our government commit us overnight to a 50-year treaty without any prior debate whatsoever in parliament, let alone in the country as a whole?

Why has this not caused outrage among our MPs (and MSPs, for that matter) whose main purposes are to legislate on our behalf and then to hold the executive to account?

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews, Fife