Readers' letters: It would be nice to vote for positive reasons for once

A reader would like to cast a positive vote for once in his life (Picture: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

My first vote in a UK general election was in 1966. I was in the Navy and home on leave and I voted with no hesitation for Harold Wilson’s Labour Party. It was more out of family loyalty than any political conviction although I was young and keen on change after many years of Tory dominance and the scandals and lies of the Profumo era.

Fast forward close to 60 years and it is only in detail that things have changed. I voted Labour this time, again with reservations, simply to help rid Scotland of the SNP and the UK of a moribund Tory party in power far too long.

It seems I am voting always for negative reasons. It would be nice before I depart this mortal coil to have just once voted with confidence and unbridled optimism.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Lords reform

Labour have announced their intention to reform the House of Lords by removing the 92 Hereditary Peers. This reform is surely to be welcomed and is much overdue.

But why stop there? There are reserved seats in the Lords for 26 Bishops of the Church of England. No representation for the Churches of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. And what about Jewish people, or Catholics, or Methodists, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, even atheists? This favoured treatment of a religious group is redolent of the privileged position of the Mullahs in Iran.

Rob Pearson, Dalgety Bay, Fife

Share the blame

Yes, the Covid Inquiry’s findings are “truly damning” as your editorial (July 19) says. But I trust that, as well as condemning Westminster and Holyrood the report also covers in detail the parts played, or not played, by relevant quangos such as Public Health England and its devolved counterparts, by NHS procurement departments regarding basic acquisition and stockpiling of PPE needs (for which we still depend on China) and by the NHS top management who seemed to ignore most of the Cygnus planning exercise’s recommendations in 2016 – it is too easy merely to blame that on the diversion of civil servants to prepare for Brexit.

There was too much “group thinking”, and an inadequate breadth of expert advice which ministers did not challenge sufficiently. But a wider spread of advice would have included those other expert medics and scientists who were sceptical of or totally opposed to the advice given by SAGE, which may well have been better advice but would have made the politicians’ decisions even more difficult. And when the then PM Boris Johnson did challenge certain advice he was inevitably accused by the usual suspects of being callous, cavalier and “not following the science”.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Covid lessons

Baroness Hallett’s key conclusion from module one of the UK Covid Inquiry was that the shockingly poor level of preparedness must never happen again.

Failures in track and trace, PPE provision and discharges of Covid-infected hospital patients into vulnerable unprotected care home environments are cited. Baroness Hallett points to the failings of an outcome-centred approach in which the economy was prioritised and one has to ask were three national lockdowns really necessary while other countries like New Zealand managed without any, carrying on as normal by simply closing borders?

A key conclusion of the report is that in future a UK-wide response is required. Devolved leaders are criticised as much for poor decision-making as the UK Government. Perhaps we will learn more in future modules about how space in overcrowded hospitals can be made to meet the demands of a future pandemic and how stretched NHS staff can build up the necessary resources and resilience to cope with future pandemic challenges.

It’s clear that Baroness Hallett is deeply concerned that many who tragically died should still be alive. Politicians have blood on their hands and still today are failing to learn lessons.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Eco-terrorists

In April 2021 nine members of Extinction Rebellion aged between 23 and 71, caused £500,000 worth of damage to high-security windows at HSBC Canary Warf's HQ. They arrived armed with club hammers and large chisels with which they proceeded to attack 16 security windows. They were all charged with criminal damage. The jury when it came to court, found them not guilty – persuaded against all reason by the nine’s expensive defence lawyers. This was a miscarriage of justice and it encouraged numerous other acts of eco-terrorism.

However, on Thursday Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced the self-proclaimed leader of Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam, to five years in prison and four associates to four years for conspiracy to bring the M25 London arterial motorway to a halt by climbing gantries, causing chaos over four days in November 2022. Let’s hope that the learned judge sets a precedent for others to follow.

The irony about Just Stop Oil is that if we stopped oil production, modern life would come crashing to a halt. Renewable energy, for example, requires oil to function. Building a wind farm without fossil fuels is impossible. The hill tracks are made by diesel-powered machines, the tower sections transported by super-heavy diesel lorries, the towers themselves made of high-quality steel which requires coking coal and blast furnaces, the (non-recyclable) rotors made of a composite plastic made from oil, and of course the gearboxes filled with gallons of special oil. Petrochemicals derived from oil make the production of more than 6,000 everyday products and hi-tech items possible. Just look around your home and count some now.

We cannot be blackmailed by a cult spreading fear and alarm and acting as eco-fascists. Let’s hope that these sentences will be followed by others even more severe if these so-called “protests” continue.

William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Unjust sentence

When I heard about the five Just Stop Oil protesters sentenced to prison for their November 2022 protest it made my blood boil. Judge Christopher Hehir said: “The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.”

Does the man not understand that there is nothing fanatical about stopping the use of oil and saving the planet from increasingly bad droughts, storms and floods? Does he not understand that every kilogram of CO2 released today will cause a global warming of 1.5 watts per square metre for not only hundreds but maybe thousands of years to come?

What entitles Judge Hehir to put forward the view that the protesters have “appointed themselves the sole arbiters...” It is everyone’s responsibility, including his, to deal with cutting down fossil fuel use. It is everyone’s responsibility to understand that every litre of fossil fuel burned is directly related to stealing water, food, and land from someone else on the planet.

We must stop living in a cloud cuckoo land where we have so many benefits of modern life gained at the expense of others.

Henryk Belda, Edinburgh

Raising taboos

David Fernandez sums himself up by admiting he found Nigel Farage being assaulted with a flying milkshake funny (Letters, July 18): most people grasp by the time they are 12 years old that “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye”.

Farage's elevation to “acceptable target” of physical abuse is solely down to the spectacular collapse of Britain’s far right post-Brexit. Forget the hysterical exaggerations of Britain’s “anti-fascist” industry (Hope Not Hate, Stand Up To Racism, Searchlight, etc); Farage fulfils their financial need much the same way old ladies fulfilled the needs of witchfinders centuries earlier.

For today’s generation it’s hard to grasp that once there were the likes of AK Chesterton’s League of Empire Loyalists, John Tyndall’s Spearhead, Colin Jordan’s British Movement and of course the National Front and the British National Party. All long gone: a generation weaned on the nation’s sweetheart Konnie Huq was never destined to follow.

They were of a time that’s past, even if some of the issues that spawned them remain. That today’s generation feels confident to send such issues and other taboos to parliament (for example, climate change) shows how far as a society we have come.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Eliminate want

Norman Lockhart is spot on with his demand to end want (Letters, 19 July).

Since 1997, our national debt has risen from £350 billion to £2,800bn, by money created from thin air, with not a word said, and hardly any of it gone to alleviate poverty. Those who create this money seem devoid of social conscience. Hardship could be eliminated right now – and forever after – with just one computer keystroke.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth and Kinross

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