It has totally failed to curtail the Russian atrocities in Ukraine, and has failed entirely to prevent the bloodshed in Israel and Palestine.

António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, is now reported as saying that the Hamas atrocities in Israel were the consequence of 56 years of “suffocating occupation” of Palestinian territory by Israel.

So what has the UN been doing about this for the past 56 years?

Protesters raise signs in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Egyptian army officers escort UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his visit to oversee preparations for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border last week (Picture: Kerolos Salah/AFP)

If its role is that of a global peacekeeper, it has failed completely to prevent terrorism, aggression and wars.

It seems that it is reduced to simply providing “humanitarian aid” to the victims of terrorism and oppression, and it fails to even do that effectively.

The world needs far more effective and commanding leadership than is seen from Mr Guterres and his recent predecessors.

Derek Farmer. Anstruther, Fife

Enough is enough

It is imperative that cool heads prevail amongst our leaders and that we don't allow emotion to cloud our collective judgment when looking at the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East. Therefore I thought it would be helpful to simply look at numbers: During the Blitz, which lasted for eight months from September 1940 to May 1941, 12,000 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone, leading to 30,000 deaths, including that of my former father in law’s sister.

The four raids over Dresden conducted by the RAF and USAF between 13 and 15 February 1945 saw 3,900 tons of explosive dropped, killing 25,000 people.

Between 1965 and 1975 the United States and its allies unloaded 7.5 million tons of explosive over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which was double that dropped on Europe and Asia during the Second World War. It is estimated that 2 million civilians and up to 1.4m combatants died.

In the first Gulf War, 88,500 tons were dropped on Iraq; in the 2003 invasion, 29,199. Numbers for Afghanistan vary.

Now, in just 17 days the Israeli air force has dropped 12,000 tons of explosive on Gaza, which is one quarter the size of London.

Tzipi Hotovely, Israel's ambassador to Britain, told both a Sky news presenter and Piers Morgan on GB News on 16 October that the Dresden and Hamburg bombings were “worth it to defeat the Nazis”.

This is the same rationale used to defend the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I would merely point out that on the Clyde we have four Trident submarines with at least one always on patrol. Each sub can carry up to 96 warheads. Each warhead is equivalent to eight Hiroshima bombs with a yield of 100 kilotons.

When will our leaders think that enough is enough?

Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Faithfuls

It is depressing to read letters like the one from Andrew Docherty (25 October) with his use of the word “traitors”, to describe those who voted for union in 1707. The fact that they might have been voting for the best is obviously alien to him!

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Sunk ambition

The Scottish Transport Committee has heard that the wrong type of steel was used on parts of the ill-fated CalMac Ferry, MV Glen Sannox. If truth prevails in its deliberations, the Committee will conclude that the wrong class of politician was the core fault.

For there was only one key error made, from which all others flowed: the ferry was a grandiose bespoke design, when it should have been bought off-the-peg. The reason? Scotland’s ministers and civil servants needed to parade their green virtue with a dual fuel engine. The requirements of the Islanders were furthest from their minds.

Scarce wonder our political elite are now hiding behind the mistakes made by the shipyard workers, who tried to implement their daft ideas.Scotland’s failing political class isn’t unique in the UK. The same inflated egos trashed HS2, where Lord Adonis wanted the fastest trains in Europe. Too speedy to bend round obvious obstacles on the route like hills.

Devolution was, however, supposed to be different, bringing decision-making closer to the people and making the establishment more accountable. As the ferry farce aptly demonstrates, that ambition is sunk without a trace.

Calum Miller, Prestonpans, East Lothian

Atheist angels?

Oh dear! Doug Clark has provided the open goal of the year, so open in fact that even Rangers could score it without the need of the referee to give them a penalty.

Where, oh where can an atheist go to find peace from bloodthirsty religious types, Clark asks (Letters, 24 October). Well, there’s always Communist China, where a minimum 40 million have been slaughtered up to today in furtherance of the Great Atheist Leap Forward. In fact, those fun-loving Commies turned genocide into an international sport: Soviet Russia clocking up 62m of its own citizens with a side serving of 5m Ukrainians, Khmer Rouge Cambodia and North Korea chalking up millions in turn. All in all Communists have prematurely removed 170m citizens of planet Earth – and counting.

No wonder born-again atheist Hitler hated Commies: for all his industrialisation of mass murder on grounds or race, politics or having a funny walk, they made him look an amateur. But at least both managed to do so without the excuse of silly old sky fairies making them do it, what?

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Simplistic view

In his letter about religious wars Doug Clark draws readers’ attention to what he describes as “religious-inspired violence”.

Superficially this looks persuasive but his argument is naive and simplistic. Any philosophy or religion can be manipulated for the selfish gain of its proponents. Atheism is no different and has been abused in the same way as religion. It is estimated that the writings and atheistic philosophy of Karl Marx has led to the death of 90 million souls.

Not to mention the murder of millions at the hands of Stalin and during China’s culture revolution. Mr Clark’s view of religion is myopic and fails to take into account all of the evidence regarding man's inhumanity to man and the reasons for it.

I do, however, sympathise with his plea, “where can an atheist go in this world of ours to find peace?” That is a reasonable question but the answer is not in his atheism.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, writes: “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” The atheist’s willingness to critique and make a moral judgment of religion is inconsistent with his fundamental beliefs so eloquently stated by Dawkins.

The fact that Mr Clark is able to call evil out for what it is and make such a moral judgment does not arise from his atheism. Contra Dawkins, he rightly assumes that there is design, there is purpose, there is good and evil and we are not indifferent to any of these things.

Few atheists realise that their belief system is rooted in theology. It is essentially driven by theism. Methinks they have a delusion about God.

Eric J Scott, Currie, Edinburgh

White noise

For someone who spends much time lecturing on the superiority of other European states compared to the UK, Leah Gunn Barrett appears to know remarkably little about them (Letters, 23 October).

From Ms Gunn Barrett’s writings, you would think that Britain must be the only place on the planet suffering an (apparently) artificial cost-of-living crisis. Most EU residents would soon put her right on this.

France has recently been rocked by large-scale rioting, a general strike and the rise of the far right. This is reminiscent of the country’s situation prior to the fall of the Third Republic in 1940.

Germany is in recession; we are not. So desperate are things in Italy that they’ve elected Giorgia Meloni in a desperate bid to find solutions to their economic and social problems. Spain’s unemployment rate is 13 per cent, whilst ours is 4.3.

But Ms Gunn Barrett will not be pleased to learn that all the above countries (like Great Britain) are formed of once independent kingdoms and principalities gradually unified over the centuries.

She exhorts “England’s remaining colonies” to “break free to fully govern themselves”, thus demonstrating woeful ignorance of what the word “colony” actually means.

Her statement that support for Scottish separatism hasn’t fallen is correct, however. Taking into account the 8-9 per cent of undecided voters, it remains roughly where it was in 2014, at 45 per cent.Ms Gunn Barrett’s claims lack both coherence and factual accuracy; they’re not rational arguments, just anti-British white noise.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Bumpy roads

Heads down folks! Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has passed her driving test. If she runs her car like she ran her party, we shall all be in for yet more bumps and lies!

Look on the bright side. With any luck she will soon have picked up enough points to to be taken out of circulation again.

S R Wild, Edinburgh

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