Readers' Letters: UK support of Ukraine could bring nuclear nightmare

As a former MEP I am appalled at the lack of debate over Britain sending cruise missiles to Ukraine with the potential to strike Russia and provoke anote-0 nuclear war in which Scotland, with its nuclear base at Faslane, would be anote-1 target.

Anti-nuclear campaigners at Faslane on the Clyde in 2020 (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

I have no time for Putin ,and Russia should not have invaded Ukraine, but I do understand why. Twenty-five years ago Russia was on friendly terms with the west and there was even talk of Russia joining Nato! Since then we have had the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of them with disastrous consequences, and the so-called war on terror, which really is the US justification for intervention anywhere it feels like.

My former MEP colleagues who attended the so called “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine which overthrew the elected government told me that it was the best-funded revolution ever, with millions of US dollars flooding into Kiev to make Ukraine become a client state of the US.

Russia warned about the expansion of a hostile military regime in Ukraine with US military power right against its borders. Suppose Cuba had decided to install cruise missiles in Mexico pointing at the US, do you think the US would stand idly by? We know the US threatened to destroy Cuba previously over Russian missiles placed there. I well remember protesting outside the US embassy on a midweek evening, convinced that we would be dead by the weekend. The truth is we were very near a war then, and we are nearing one now.

The response in the House of Commons has been pathetic – even the SNP members seem keener to dress up in uniform than to oppose war. That’s why I’m glad that the Alba Party has adopted a view that an independent Scotland should not join Nato but instead work for peace. Incidentally, another Alba member, our former ambassador Craig Murray, recently attended the Ukraine peace talks in Turkey and told me the two sides were near a solution but the Americans blocked it!

Hugh Kerr, Edinburgh

Questions...

It’s coming up to that time again. You know, the election promises time. Labour promising to undo everything the Conservatives have created. Liberals promising not to be Conservatives. SNP promising an Independence referendum.

But what the general public want is a question that is seldom considered. I suggest that we want stability. A chance to take a breath and see if there are any positives coming to us over the next decade, or problems that will impact on our standard of living that can be solved today rather than being a major issue down the line.

If we agree that’s a real need, that would assume that Independence for Scotland goes on the backburner. Similarly, it means acceptance that Brexit is now a fact and has to be made to work for both the EU and the UK.

Our politicians have to stop listening to the noise and start working on supporting those industries that create wealth for the UK, not every other country. Try thinking about where the net zero carbon investment returns are funnelled – it’s not to the UK, that’s for sure.

Public sector unrest is an obvious issue and to some extent is warranted. However, the real question has to be what tangible benefit do we get from this vast, taxpayer-funded entity? In addition, is there a sensible way to ensure that this vast entity actually works for us, the public, and that we appreciate that work!

Obviously our health service is an area that we can all appreciate as being good for us. Do we, the public, know where our billions of pounds are actually spent? Do our politicians know? I suspect not.

I asked at the start, what do we want? I suggested stability but it is more than that, really, we really need honesty from our politicians as to the actual human and monetary cost of their policies.

T Lewis, Coylton, Ayrshire

Good work

I am impressed with the new-look Scotsman. The enhanced layout makes it easier to read and there seems to be more news than before. A very readable newspaper has become even more enjoyable and informative.

Bob MacDougall, Oxhill, Kippen, Stirlingshire

Unfair policy

It is clear that talented middle-class school-leavers have suffered discrimination in the postcode lottery created by the laudable but ill thought-through policy that aims to increase the number of university students coming from deprived backgrounds. It is a policy just like the one operated in eastern European countries before the collapse of the Iron Curtain; a Hungarian scientist friend of mine who had eventually escaped to Scotland had middle-class parents (not classified as workers or peasants) and on that account was not allowed to go to university, but only permitted to go to a technical college.

It appears that the First Minister is going to stick with the policy, despite Heriot-Watt University removing Alex Salmond's “rocks will melt with the sun” stone sanctifying no student fees (subtext: “except for the English”) from public view. At least it hasn't just been hidden under a very visible blue tent!

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Blame game

If opposition politicians and outgoing Children's Commissioner Bruce Adamson want to believe children have been failed solely by one First Minister, one Scottish Government, that is their choice, not mine.

Successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, never saw fit, for quite political reasons, not to have a sovereign oil wealth fund, like Norway, to help out those children by investment of oil revenues.

It is successive governments that have ignored these communities in most need, that have failed to invest in good social housing and rural public transport.

It is certainly not the Scottish Government that is responsible for setting the minimum wage at £10.42 an hour.

However, if both opposition leaders, their supporters, Bruce Adamson and the public at large want to bask in a fuzzy glow that it is all down to the Scottish Government and one former First Minister, who I am I to stop them?

Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead, Aberdeen

Drive for justice?

Ann Bonomy makes a valid point about the offence of causing serious injury by careless driving, pointing out that conviction of such an offence attracts a mandatory sentence of disqualification (Perspective, 15 May). I would go further and submit that the creation of the offence was quite irrational. Surely what should concern a court when deciding on the appropriate sentence for a driving offence should be the quality of the driving, not its consequence. The consequence of any driving incident can be, and usually is, a matter of pure chance. This comment applies equally to the more serious offence of causing death by careless driving.

I am glad to say that I retired as a sheriff years before these aggravated offences of careless driving were created. I am reasonably confident that when sentencing for an offence of careless driving I looked only at the nature of the driving and ignored the consequences, no matter how tragic they might have been. I have a strong suspicion that these aggravated offences were passed by Parliament as a result of pressure by victims and their relations who thought that the principle of an eye for an eye should apply to such cases. There has, of course, existed for very many years the offence of causing death by dangerous driving. The same criticism can be applied to that. I understand that it was introduced because juries were reluctant to convict of culpable homicide, that being the appropriate charge for causing death by seriously dangerous or reckless conduct, but that is past praying for now.

Alastair L Stewart, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

Levelled teams

As a follower of a provincial football team I was keen to see VAR introduced into Scottish football as I hoped it would reduce the cases of dubious offsides which seemed to invariably go in favour of the Old Firm. Unfortunately, VAR has made it worse, with some ridiculous decisions being made in the Big Two’s favour in recent weeks. It is obvious that the Strathclyde Football Association, sorry, the SFA won’t let a non-Old Firm team win the Premier League ever again – it is almost 40 years since such a team won the league. I also understand that Rangers have not conceded a penalty for 53 matches, which is a Scottish – and possibly European – record. So much for VAR helping to level the playing field in the Scottish game.

Jack Watt, St Ola, Orkney

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