Readers' Letters: Scotland deserves place at top table of COP26

It is only narrow-minded, parochial unionists who resent Scotland’s presence at COP26 (Ian Paynter, Letters, 5 November). Despite Boris Johnson’s wish that Nicola Sturgeon should not be heard, the leader of our nation managed to have discussions with world leaders including UN Secretary-General António Guterres, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the opening ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Ian Paynter trots out the lazy nonsense that Scotland is too wee and too poor to become a normal self-governing nation. If Scotland was to become independent tomorrow we would be one of the top 20 or so wealthiest countries on the planet. Based on GDP per capita small countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland and Ireland all have a higher standard of living and better state pensions than the UK.

With 8 per cent of the UK population, Scotland produces 28 per cent of the UK’s gas consumption and supplies 25 per cent of UK electricity, 97 per cent of which comes from Scotland’s renewables.

Small is beautiful and act locally, think globally are the guiding principles of the environmental movement and Scotland is setting a good example as we have ambitious targets. We have cut our greenhouse gas emissions by more than half since 1990, and since 2008 we have decarbonised faster than any country in the G20.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Muscling in

As we are all aware the COP Conference is being hosted by the UK Government. As it happens the event is being staged in Glasgow. World leaders are participating in this important global event with the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, acting as host. But Nicola Sturgeon and some of her SNP cronies cannot resist the temptation of trying to muscle in on the action. As the expression goes: “There’s no show without Punch.”

They could have made better use of their time by trying to stop any disruption to the event brought about by the farce of industrial action threatened by Glasgow bin collection service, or by the ScotRail network.

Robert IG Scott, Ceres, Fife

No defence

Kenny MacAskill claims (Perspective, 5 November) that Ireland “will be seated at the top table” in the EU, as in top table in school, where the prefects sit with those who make the real decisions, like the Headmaster – or in the case of the EU, to which I think he is referring – the Headmistress, Angela Merkel.

We lent Ireland £3.25 billion in 2010 because they needed money. Unlike us, Ireland is in the EU and it was the EU who told Ireland (they didn’t ask) that their border with the UK was closed. No consultation, just an order. Top table? I think not.

Again, Ireland voted against the EU Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and were told to vote again and get the “right” decision next time. As commentator Brendan O’Neill said: “EU officials [showed] their utter contempt for Irish voters, and for democracy itself. It is an historic sucker punch against the sovereignty of the people.”

Mr MacAskill comments that Ireland “sits on the (UN) Security Council” – but only for 2021-22. The UK is a permanent member and protects all of western Europe, Ireland included, with “weapons of mass destruction” to prevent other weapons of mass destruction which are aimed at us from being used.

These weapons have protected us from the Russian invasions in the last 65 years experienced by: Hungary; Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan; Georgia; the Ukraine. None of those nations were nuclear-armed and, as he will be well-aware, the UK has never threatened any with our weapons as they are purely defensive. Clearly, he doesn’t want us to have any defence against nuclear powers, but why not?

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Sleazy does it

Ask any of the present Tory government who their greatest political influence was and most, I would guess, would say Margaret Thatcher. I disagreed fundamentally with most of her policies, and still do, but it is only with the events of recent times that I can look back and view certain aspects of her time in office in a different light.She ruled the Tory Party with an iron rod but always with integrity, transparency and accountability. Any Minister deemed to have crossed any of those lines, no matter how trivially, was required, not expected, to resign. Just ask Francis Pym, Lord Carrington, Cecil Parkinson or Michael Heseltine, all decent and honest politicians, to name but a few. And her mantra was always “value for money”.

Today, however, we have a Tory administration that spent £41 billion on a useless Track and Trace system; that awarded PPE multi-million pound contracts to its friends and donors via a VIP fast track route – £2.1 billion of this cash awarded having mysteriously disappeared – with much of the PPE equipment unfit for purpose; a Prime Minister who pays for nothing whether it be holiday homes or ludicrously expensive wallpaper; a Chancellor with responsibility for taxing the mega-wealthy and multi-national companies who just happens to be a member of a mega-wealthy family who own a multi-national company, while cutting vital payments to the most needy in society; MPs who lobby for large companies and trouser hundreds of thousands of pounds for their efforts and see no problem with this; that ignores independent inquiries and court rulings that don’t happen to show its ministers in a positive light and threatens to change the laws because of it.

This is just the tip of the sleaze iceberg and, during the current climate conference, it’s one iceberg that is not receding.So is this government carrying on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy of integrity, transparency, accountability and value for money? You decide.

D Mitchell, Edinburgh

Cluttered gutters

The re-emergence of “sleaze” within the political elite is hugely disappointing and quite what Boris Johnson and his so called “advisers” were thinking about in their efforts to “defend” Owen Paterson is anyone’s guess. Further, their efforts to reform the Parliamentary Standards process were at best clumsy and at worst entirely self interested.

Voters will judge this sorry and unedifying episode very harshly when the time comes to do so. The indignation, anger and outrage expressed by the opposition parties is entirely expected – but it is also worth reflecting that “sleaze” and inappropriate behaviour is not unique to the Tories.

Opposition parties such as the SNP and the Labour Party are absolutely entitled to attack the Tories but they themselves must remember their own misdemeanours and act accordingly, where at times they have not done so. It is not that long ago the former SNP MSP Derek Mackay retained his salary and claimed expenses for over a year without being in the Scottish Parliament. The First Minister was found to have misled the Scottish Parliament. A Labour MP, Claudia Webbe, has just been found guilty of harassment and threats to another woman. The list is too long.

Regretfully, it seems the sense of entitlement felt by our political masters across all colours remains firmly in place and too often the voters are being asked to clear the gutters of discredited politicians.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Bus pass

While I am in the same over-70 category as many of your recent correspondents and have also not received my booster letter I would mention a little-known fact. My wife and I happened to be at Fort Kinnaird retail park on Wednesday afternoon and we noticed a big double decker “vaccination bus”.On enquiring we were both able to get our boosters with absolutely no queue or fuss! Should this facility not have been advertised, as it would have saved many over-seventies travelling miles?Again, shockingly poor administration.

Scott Miller, Joppa, Edinburgh

That vision thing

Elective surgery is a phrase that can be misleading as it sounds as if it is something that we choose to do, such as cosmetic surgery to improve our looks. This, however, is not the case as it actually means non-urgent surgery, something that can be planned for.

The Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh has cancelled almost all elective surgery until March next year while staff help out at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. This means treatment such as cataract operations and the treatment of glaucoma – the second most common cause of certified sight loss in the UK. Robbing Peter to pay Paul will not improve the general health of the nation. Sight loss is a traumatic event and can often be preventable.

This issue of lack of staff was foreseeable but yet again the ex-Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the current incumbent, Humza Yousaf, are clearly myopic.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Days of dung

Steuart Campbell (Letters, 5 November) makes a point. A geological blink ago Londoners may have enjoyed the spectacle of coach and horses travelling along a frozen River Thames – but in the bitter winters of the last decade of the 17th century there was such a shortage of fuel in much of Scotland that the peasant population was driven into using cattle dung, the only manure of the time, instead. The resulting starvation was a major factor in the loss of more than ten per cent of the population, and eventually a driver of the 1707 union.

By 2030 losing both our existing nuclear and gas-fired power stations will mean that if we have by then also ceded from the UK much of our remaining renewables generation installations could well be like beached whales – of no use whatsoever and very costly to remove.

(Dr) A McCormick, Terregles, Dumfries & Galloway

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