Letters: Cavalcade is too important to rest in one man's hands

I AM rather puzzled after reading that the Festivals Cavalcade is being shelved for this year because the man in charge has decided to quit (News, April 14).

Aside from wondering why anyone would want to turn their back on Edinburgh for the pleasures of Millport, I find it hard to fathom that an event that has been running for more than 30 years and which attracts crowds from all over the place in excess of 100,000 has to be cancelled because one man wants out.

Has David Todd no deputy? Are there no other staff who can keep the project going?

Not proceeding along Princes Street has been a disappointment in recent times, but the event is still looked forward to as one of the highlights of the summer in Edinburgh, especially if the sun is shining.

To merely decide that, "oh well, the main man is quitting, let's just call it off and put the money away for next year" does not reflect well on Steve Cardownie, the so-called festivals and events champion.

What kind of champion settles for less than the best?

Richard McCallum, Gorgie Road, Edinburgh

Skip green pages for real policies

SNP pledges new green target, says your headline (News, April 14). It would be churlish to spurn the gradual conversion of other parties to policies for which the Greens were arguing 20 years ago (and being derided as "unrealistic" then).

But it is also important that voters understand what lies behind the headlines.

The SNP has committed to 100 per cent of electricity use from renewables by 2020. Well and good, but it also backs new coal-fired power stations and, of course, it is a party that is linked umbilically to oil.

And not all energy use is electricity; the SNP, through its transport policy of road expansion and bridge building, is going in quite the wrong direction and at huge cost to the public purse. If you want to see how green a party really is, skip past the environment section of the manifesto and read the sections on the economy and public services.

Is it a party that is wedded to old models of economic growth with all the instability and damage they cause? Is it giving with the one hand and taking with the other?

Or is it, in every policy, committed to a greener and fairer Scotland?

Alison Johnstone, lead Green candidate for Lothian

Gray would fail nation on nuclear

THE severity level from Japan has been raised to the same as Chernobyl, yet Iain Gray would still keep Scotland lumbered with nuclear weapons despite the risks - a fact reinforced by the shooting aboard HMS Astute. The truth is Scotland is not safe with Labour.

Andrew JT Kerr, Castlegate, Jedburgh

Ban this brutal practice for good

THIS week is World Week For Animals In Laboratories.

In Britain alone, 3.7 million animals are tortured and murdered every year by human beings in laboratories. This horrific experimentation on living animals is called vivisection. In any decent, humane society vivisection would never be allowed. Vivisection should be outlawed immediately.

All animals are sentient beings. We all feel pain. To deliberately inflict suffering on any sentient being is wrong.Vivisection involves the deliberate infliction of suffering and death on millions of our fellow sentient beings every year.

In addition to the horrendous suffering inflicted on millions of animals, vivisection increases human suffering as well.

Contrary to the claims of its supporters, vivisection impedes the advancement of medical treatments for humans.

Different species react to substances in different ways.For example, aspirin is safe for humans but causes birth defects in rats and mice.

The only way to be sure a medical treatment is safe for humans is when extensive trials have been carried out with human volunteers.

Those who make money and careers from vivisection do not want it to end.

Please support a total ban on vivisection.

Graeme Darling, Jedburgh