Scotsman Letters: New Years honours for the largely undeserving

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss (Picture: Rob Pinney/Getty Images)

Given the grim weather warnings in this post-Christmas period, what a delight it was to read about the recipients of the New Year's Honours List.

As always, those who genuinely represent real communities and/or have performed heroic rescues etc, are at the bottom of the list, receiving mere 'membership' of the British Empire.

Those higher up the ladder on what has increasingly become a Ruritanian farce are either (shamefully) the nominees of Liz Truss, the Lady Jane Grey of Faux UK politics, or in a category which appears to have nothing to do with public service – quite the reverse in fact – 'services to shareholders'.

A number of these people also appear to have made donations to the Royal Opera House: a deserving cultural institution perhaps, but not when people are literally freezing or hungry in what is meant to be an advanced economy.

​The choice is between laughing at this continued delusional practice in our ever more unequal society or sheer anger at the smug and out of touch behaviour of our purported leaders.

I choose to laugh as I myself have been in quick succession Lady Marjorie (changed when Michelle Mone's yacht was Lady M), the Countess of Camberwell when I lived in South London, and latterly in my apotheosis Regina of Royal Terrace.

​If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

​Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Stronger together

To the small group of separatists who have chosen to make their homes in Scotland but who would like to break up our Union, I wish a Very Happy New Year as we enter the year which will be the tenth anniversary of Scotland's voluntary choice to remain British.

Very few, if any, countries have been given the ability to express their wishes on a specific question like that, but we in Scotland were the lucky ones.

There are many other political unions of one sort or another in this world of ours. Few have been as influential as the United Kingdom. It is thanks to us that nations across the world use the English language and, where local despots, or overbearing dictatorships have not crushed dissent, the democratic institutions we have passed on to them give their people the chance to live in a country which is free, like our own.

One other leading nation like the UK is the United States of America, a country which draws upon and honours the same ideas of freedom. The triumph of America's Union is expressed in a motto which applies equally to the UK. "E Pluribus Unum" ("From the Many, One") expresses the notion that the many states in the US are much less individually than collectively as one great union.

It expresses the self-evident truth of how much greater the whole is than the sum of the parts of both Unions; ours and that of the United States of America.

That is the lesson for 2024.

Andrew H N Gray, Edinburgh

COP targets

The Opinion article of December 30 by Stewart McDonald, MSP, indicates yet another in a long line of politicians who refuse to address the cost of implementing COP26 targets and the political implications of such policies.

The claim by the renewable sector that wind projects have doubled in cost led to Westminster taking such problems in an urgent manner by doubling the offshore wind strike price to £73 per MWhour which will have severe implications on household energy costs.

In addition, a Green Revolution will now come with a debt of £300 billion, the SNP plan to increase the capacity of wind output to 60GW means further capital costs of £270 billion whilst the uncosted hydrogen-fuelled back-up plan will result in increased debt of around £360 billion based on the experience of ferry contracts.

Why do SNP/Green Alliance politicians fail to provide the price of their net zero plans, especially when the UK per capita CO2 emissions are now below 1859 figures, ie we have already improved on the levels set almost 200 years ago!

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas

Basic economics

Leah Gunn Barrett’s letter of December 30 shows an embarrassing lack of understanding of basic economics and how an economy functions. To state that the Bank of England presses a computer key and hey presto!, produces £400bn of “free money” is quite staggering!

She then goes on to display an ignorance of factors that impact on inflation with the thought that flooding the UK economy with new money would have no effect on inflation.

She’s undoubtedly, the sort of person who subscribes to the belief that if everybody was to be awarded a 10 per cent pay increase everybody would be 10 per cent better off rather than just be standing still while destroying the economy.

Michael Officer, Bridge of Earn

Marriage vows

Susan Morrison’s amusing and informative article about the history of marriage in Scotland (December 30) unfortunately contained one implied error. When she writes “Finally, a man and woman could present themselves as married ,’by habit and repute’. Marriage was a contract, not a sacrament. The Kirk, of course, didn’t quite see it that way.”

Actually, the Kirk would have seen it that way. There are only two sacraments observed in the Church of Scotland – baptism and communion. Although the phrase ‘holy matrimony’ is often used in the context of a church wedding, it refers only to the fact that the couple make their vows in the presence of God. It does not constitute a sacrament. Our friends in the Roman Catholic Church observe seven sacraments.

Bill Greenock, Netherlee, East Renfrewshire

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