Those involved in the sector wholeheartedly condemn any form of raptor persecution and, whilst there have undoubtedly been historical incidents, recent wildlife crime reports by the Scottish Government demonstrate that where incidents still occur, very few are in areas managed for grouse.

Instead, Mr Orr-Ewing will know that raptors are thriving on grouse moors. Scotland supports more than 400 breeding pairs of golden eagles and the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, of which RSPB is a partner, recently revealed 90 per cent of eagle chicks translocated for the conservation scheme came from private estates, many of which are managing land for grouse.

Regarding muirburn, the suggestion that muirburn has caused major wildfires is misleading. The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service has made clear that controlled burning has a role to play in reducing vegetation which fuel wildfires – the sort of wildfires that engulfed RSPB’s Forsinard Flows nature reserve in May 2019 and, according to WWF Scotland, doubled Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions for the six days it burnt.

Raptors such as the golden eagle are thriving on grouse moors, says Ross Ewing of Scottish Land & Estates

Moorland management is making a tangible contribution in confronting climate change and reversing biodiversity loss at the landscape scale, all while sustaining and supporting fragile, rural communities. It is vital that any future regulation imposed by the Scottish Government does not detract from these vital benefits.

Ross Ewing, Director of Moorland, Scottish Land & Estates, Musselburgh, East Lothian

‘Privilege’ scandal

It is scandalous that a university or our government should consider themselves to have the right to choose an applicant according to “privilege” or rather, lack of it (Scotsman, 12 January).

Children do not choose their parents, nor do they choose the school that they attend – and there is nothing wrong with parents wanting to give their children the best foundation for their lives.

A university should be an academically-orientated place for our future leaders. Not everyone can be a leader, and we need to value our great followers also, but a university should above all select young people who are motivated to achieve and determined to work unhampered with a view to being able to afford the choices that they wish to make, to have a fulfilled lifestyle, to be generous, frank and independent – and to make the world a better place, where decisions such as this one never see the light of day.

Deirdre Kinloch Anderson, Longniddry, East Lothian

Parting of ways

For over 50 years since graduating MA, LlB from Edinburgh I have taken great pride in being an alumnus of such a prestigious university. For many years I have been pleased to “put something back” by making not inconsidrable financial contributions.

No more! The revelation that meritocracy has been abandoned in favour of dogma has cut my strong connective cord to the university.

My family would be regarded as borderline middle class but with aspirations which I hope I fulfilled. With the current mantra of “inclusivity” I would have been screened out and my future stolen. So, Edinburgh, with utmost regret, we no longer follow the same path.

Sandy Green, Cupar, Fife

University guilty

Discrimination should always be called out when it surfaces. It is therefore extremely sad to read that Edinburgh University – where I studied for three degrees, worked in research for years, and even spent a short time as part of the deanery – is guilty as charged.

It’s just as disappointing to read that our First Minister seems to approve of this behaviour (Scotsman, 13 January). If the discrimination had been in favour of those who now have no chance of even being considered for studies that might determine their future, the FM would have exploded with real rage – not her usual faux outburst. She seems to be supportive of selective discrimination.

The university sends me a letter every year begging for money. Until such time as they change this unacceptable policy, they can save the postage. As for the SNP…

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Social engineering

The reports about the method of selecting new students, particularly for law, at Edinburgh University is nothing short of scandalous. No pupil who has achieved good grades at school should then find themselves rejected simply because of the area or school they are from.

This bizarre SNP attempt at social engineering means top-class candidates are passed over. Everyone is all for inclusivity but this is an exclusion policy. If it is happening at Edinburgh University then where else too? Have the SNP, with their new friends the Greens, over-reached themselves. This is not a positive policy but rather the reverse. The damage being done now is catastrophic. Scotland has no future prosperity ahead whilst our current government is in control.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Broken record

Yet again, Kenny MacAskill’s playing his favourite broken record that Ireland’s economic success should inspire Scotland to quit the UK (Scotsman, 12 January).

Oh, you mean Kenny that “economic success” where Britain bailed it out in 2010 – for the umpteenth time – with £3.23 billion directly, and a whopping extra £10bn in “back door pay-outs” via RBS and Lloyds: literally a quarter of all the money which was supposed to be bailing out our economy was instead used to prop up our eternally resentful neighbour – not to be repaided until 2042. Whoopee!

Never, ever use the Emerald Isle’s eternal biscuit tin economics – which its apologists always fob off with zero irony as somehow always “Britain’s fault” – as an argument for any nation's independence. As its greatest son Bob Geldof said: a banana republic without bananas!

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Lost beds

It is now about 15 years since I was involved in trying to save our country hospital. I was assured that the bed capacity was surplus to requirements, even allowing for a projected increasingly aged population and for seasonal demands.

Likewise, I was told the change of use of a single room on a ward for administration would not impact on bed usage remaining below the recommended 85 per cent!

I wonder what a freedom of information inquiry would reveal across the country regarding the number of beds lost through closing small local hospitals and reallocating single-bed units to administration?

James Watson, Dunbar, East Lothian

Starmer’s pose

Thank you for publishing (Scotsman, 12 January) Kenny MacAskill’s detailed exposition of Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition “Gangster Government” and his condemnation of the extreme ultra-nationalists who are already taking steps towards what would culminate in the obliteration of the Palestinian people.

I know that I am not alone in having noticed that in recent years “the horrendous death toll of Palestinians and repeated incursions into Palestinian lands” have had comparatively little publicity, and that traditional campaigners against injustice like the Labour Party have been keeping schtum.

In Sir Keir Starmer’s New Year Address he spoke proudly of having changed the Labour Party. The application of his proven and self-publicised professional forensic skills would enable him to accept that criticism of the Israeli government in this matter is very, very necessary, urgently – and not at all anti-Semitic.

Something that Sir Keir spells out repeatedly to the electorate also needs a reality check. He keeps citing facts from his family upbringing because he thinks he has actually experienced the life of the working-class and the poor. But among “the workers of the world” the opportunity to be a tool-maker was a very rare thing – highly skilled, highly paid, highly valued, with absolutely no risk of being dismissed at the employer’s whim and no need of the two-and-a-half hours’ notice hard-won by some trade unions. For your mother also to be working as a nurse, and to have a semi-detached house, would mean you would be regarded as middle-class by the mass of the then electorate. Sir Keir’s New Year address spoke of the telephone being cut off as proof of poverty but most people then could not afford a phone.

Clement Attlee never made the mistake of trying to identify with the working class in order to win their support.

Jack Kellet, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Space tourism

The first UK launch of a satellite, planned to take place from Newquay Airport, has ended in failure (Scotsman, 11 January). This had me wondering about emissions from rockets, and how they may effect the climate. I soon found a 2022 study lead-authored by Robert Ryan. They estimate that space industry global revenue will grow from $350 million in 2019 to more that $1,000,000 million by 2040.

The environmental findings of the study are disturbing. The warming efficiency of space tourism soot emissions is about 500-times greater than surface and aircraft sources of soot. And ozone depletion caused by the launches undermines the Montreal Protocol.

Isn't it odd that the climate protest groups and influential individuals who regularly speak on climate are keeping quiet about this.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

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Readers' Letters: Moorland management brings many benefits

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