No rail benefits

One would suspect, given their unflinching belief in “one of the most successful unions in human history”, that Alexander McKay (Letters, 19 October) and that other erstwhile “believer” Andrew HN Gray (Letters, 15 October) are old enough to remember the claims made for Britain’s investment in the Channel Tunnel and associated infrastructure. High-speed rail journeys from Glasgow and Edinburgh through to Paris were boasted to justify Scotland’s significant tax contribution to this project, that purportedly would radically modernise UK transportation infrastructure.

Some decades later, we had until very recently been subjected to more claimed benefits for Scotland, this time through the proposed HS2 rail project, even although for decades ahead there are no concrete plans to extend this high-speed network to Scotland. Those speculative benefits, however, have now been put into perspective with the Freedom of Information revelation that while Greater London will again gain substantial benefit from a massive UK infrastructure project (taking more billions from Scottish tax-payers), cities such as Aberdeen and Dundee will be significantly worse off.

This economic imbalance will probably not surprise those who attempt to objectively consider whether we should persist with membership of an out-dated Union that has effectively been superseded through membership of the European Union Those such as Messrs McKay and Gray, who would continue to support the current constitutional arrangements and such London-centric projects through a misguided sense of loyalty to an empire that has long been in decline not only betray principles of objectivity and balance, they betray the hopes and ambitions of future generations of Scots.

Stan Grodynski

East Lothian