Readers' Letters: Labour has lost right to call itself 'people's party'

When former Labour MSP Neil Findlay tendered his resignation from the party in response to the proposed £5 billion cuts to welfare benefits he said he could “no longer remain a member of a party that lied to the British people at the last election and with regularity betrays the people who voted for it” (your report, 19 March).

South of the Border, the leader of Dudley's Labour group, Councillor Pete Lowe, announced his departure from the party he had been a member of for 41 years. In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer he said the Labour Party has “lost its soul” and “chooses to prioritise the few over the many”.

It is difficult to disagree with the sentiments voiced by these former party stalwarts. In a report last year Oxfam revealed that in the four years to January 2024 the world's five richest people more than doubled their wealth to £869 billion, while the world's poorest 60 per cent (almost 5 billion people) became worse off. The total worth of the world's dollar billionaires was $3.3 trillion! Despite this massive income gulf between the haves and the have nots the Prime Minister steadfastly refuses to contemplate any form of wealth tax as a means of boosting public sector finances.

Sir Keir Starmer has upset some traditional supporters since he became Prime Minister (Picture: Chris Radburn - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

This despite all the evidence indicating that the latest round of cuts will cause massive hardship to disabled people. It would appear the people's party has been transformed into the rich people's party!

Alan Woodcock, Dundee

Sold a pup

Scotland produces a huge chunk of the UK's renewable energy, as just about every resident of the North East of Scotland whose local areas are going to be covered by huge pylons could tell you. This production is going to increase massively to meet the demands of electricity consumers who live in England. Many of us who live in the North East of our country do not consider it unreasonable to expect that in return for not only the production of this energy, but also the spoiling of much of our scenic countryside for its transportation south, the people of Scotland should receive some fair compensation.

It was therefore more than a bit dismaying to read in “GB Energy can boost Scottish Labour” (22 March) that out of the £200 million GB Energy intends to spend on the installation of rooftop solar panels, only £5m, a mere 2.5 per cent of the total, is to be spent on Scotland.

Your article quoted Energy Minister Michael Shanks MP as stating, “We have to demonstrate the UK Government is delivering for the people of Scotland”. and that Labour was “working absolutely flat out to deliver cheaper bills". Mr Shanks is more than aware that during last July's general election campaign Labour openly stated that GB Energy would reduce our electricity bills, with the quoted figure being £300. It is now rather ironic that after the next planned increase for energy charges in April, our bills will actually have risen by £300 since last July's election.

However, let’s get back to the subject of the £200m GB Energy spend and the fact that Scotland will only receive a share of 2.5 per cent of this money. The allocation for the £200m will come from the Treasury via debt and as usual, the amount that Scotland will be charged will be the full 8.5 per cent as its contribution. Rather than being in receipt of fair compensation for its energy production and bearing the burden of its delivery to south of the Border, the people of Scotland have been sold yet another pup by the Labour Party!

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Unclean green

UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband publicly admits that the solar panels he is intent on plastering all over the countryside are made in China.

What he doesn’t admit is that much of the rare earths and minerals needed for said panels, electric vehicles, wind turbines and battery storage systems also have dubious green credentials. The mega tonnage required for the “green transition” is what is driving the scramble for these commodities and a significant amount is mined in poor countries where the populations are grossly exploited. Even in legitimate mines wages are low and conditions would be unacceptable here.

Due to the mad dash for Net Zero by the developed world these highly sought minerals attract unscrupulous practices and child labour is not uncommon. Others desperately try to scratch a living where they can find pockets of, for example, cobalt with little or no protection to their health. These people are called “artisan” miners and whatever they find is sold cheaper to the same people who buy from the regulated and unregulated industry. They don’t keep the cobalt separate. It all goes into the same supply chain.

No company can honestly say their source is ethical if the country of origin also has unregulated industry and independent miners.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo it is the Chinese who are the main buyers of cobalt. Energy is too expensive (ironically) in the DRC for it to process the ore itself. So it is taken to China, processed and then it is ready to sell or use in products like solar panels with forced labour from incarcerated Uyghurs.

Solar panels are then transported to us in diesel ships. So are the wind turbines and pylons made with coal-produced Chinese steel because we can’t make them cheaply enough with our extortionate energy costs. Lithium mining uses vast quantities of water and often the indigenous people end up with land that won’t support crops or animals.

Today MPs are debating at Westminster whether public funding of renewable companies with forced labour in their supply chains should be stopped. Shouldn’t that include child labour, desperate “artisan” miners selling cheap and water theft and pollution on a scale we would not tolerate?

The dirty side of green is fiercely denied by the renewable companies as they know the general public would be horrified to know the origins of what they force on us as clean and their gravy train might just hit the buffers. Our virtue-signalling politicians sit in their offices smugly wearing their green-tinted specs while relocating our pollution to other countries in a bizarre carbon exchange that is supposed to make us look clean.

For any right thinking person what is happening overseas to service our politicians’ green zealotry is abhorrent and beyond comprehension. It will be interesting to see which MPs vote against the proposal and for forced labour today.

Lyndsey Ward, Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly, Highland

Free thinking

The desire for independence is not narrow nationalism, as many ill-informed people suggest, but rather a desire for freedom to decide Scotland’s future destiny, unhindered by a distant elite London ruling establishment.

The courageous and vibrant young country of Estonia (an EU member), with a fraction of Scotland’s population or resources, follows its own destiny. This small, prosperous and independent nation has more influence in shaping Europe – and indeed, the world – than our ancient sovereign nation of Scotland.

Grant Frazer, Cruachan, Highland

Rail benefits

Peter Smaill’s letter “Borders railway expansion would not benefit Scotland” (20 March) is based on false arguments.

Firstly, the question of an extension has not been properly evaluated in the past. The major Scott Wilson study in 2000, which laid the groundwork for the 2015 reopening, did not preclude a later extension beyond Tweedbank and this has not been thoroughly evaluated since the railway reopened.

Secondly, the ridership, especially from Stow, Galashiels and Tweedbank, was underestimated, largely due to weaknesses in the forecasting methodologies. ScotRail and Transport Scotland now have comprehensive data on why passengers use the Borders Railway, so new forecasts will be more soundly based.

Thirdly, although the broad scope of the study will extend from Galashiels/Tweedbank to Carlisle, it will assess a wide variety of options, each with specific benefit to cost ratios. Politicians will then be able to make informed decisions regarding public investment.

The fact that Scottish and UK politicians are willing to support the study at a time of financial stringency shows that the poor connectivity suffered by large parts of the Borders merits proper investigation.

We should support the process with factual input and reasoned argument, rather than write it off before it has begun. The study will evaluate quantifiable economic, social and environmental benefits and is definitely not about pleasing railway enthusiasts!

Although the Scottish and UK Governments are contributing equally to the cost of the study, its scope is mostly in Scotland. To suggest that Scotland will not benefit is both perverse and incorrect.

Peter Heubeck, Technical Advisor to The, Campaign for Borders Rail, York

Elsie’s time?

It is said that there are more statues of animals in Edinburgh than there are of women.

A drive to finance and arrange a statue of Dr Elsie Inglis gained momentum and cash but was derailed by the self-inflicted wound of a perceived need for any statue to be the work of a woman.

The idea of the statue originally was to commit the memory of a great woman to stone and to help raise the standing of women generally in the history of Scotland.

Has sufficient time now passed to allow the statue to finally be erected in the way that the original committee intended?

Gary Sayer, Warrnambool, Australia

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