Sir, – A number of correspondents have recently voiced their opinions regarding Primary 1 assessments in Scottish schools, criticising the Scottish Government in general and John Swinney in particular.
We are informed that teachers and parents are overwhelmingly against the tests.
Are they?
I am unaware of any comprehensive polling having been undertaken to confirm and support this assertion in either case.
The recent Scottish Household Survey revealed that 87% of Scots with a direct involvement with schools are satisfied with our education system.
It should also be borne in mind that Curriculum for Excellence is a policy the SNP inherited from the other parties at Holyrood, including Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives, which not only included P1 assessments in their last manifesto, but also demanded that it be implemented.
Short-term political expediency has blighted all aspects of Scottish life for generations and education has not been immune from this.
Fortunately we have in place a Government at Holyrood pursuing long-term policies with the sole purpose of improving the lot of Scotland’s population.
Meanwhile, the Tories, instigators of last week’s motion against P1 testing, continue to roll out their own Universal Credit policy while arrogantly dismissing the evidence of distress, grief and deaths which have resulted as a direct consequence.
Ken Clark.
c/o 15 Thorter Way,
Dundee.
Cannot afford a bad decision
Sir, – As a Dundee United supporter I am anxious about who will be chosen as our next manager.
In the last few years there have been so many awful decisions made by various grey-suited men behind closed doors that have seriously damaged the club.
We need a manager who has a real inside knowledge of the traditions of the club and who has credibility with players and the support.
I would not want one of the usual names to be chosen.
Most of them are unemployed and there is a reason for that.
Most of them are proven failures.
My choice would be Jim McInally, at present the manager of Peterhead.
Perhaps he wouldn’t want to leave his present club in the lurch but if he would I believe that he has all the credentials to be a successful United manager.
He was an important member of a highly successful United team.
He has done really well managing Peterhead.
I have seen a few other names being put forward and am not impressed with them.
Let’s at least consider one of our own who deserves the opportunity to manage a team who should be competing at the top of the premier league.
Harry Key.
20 Mid Street,
Largoward.
Housing must respect wildlife
Sir, – During a recent visit to a local care home within the Monifieth area, four distressed looking deer were spotted trying to cross the new house building site between Victoria Street and the Arbroath Road; roadways which are daily becoming more hazardous.
While appreciating the need for housing, contractors should ensure that provision is made for our wildlife, before it fades into history.
Kenneth Miln.
6 Swallow Apts,
Union Street,
Monifieth.
We must set a good example
Sir, – Clark Cross (Letters, September 29) expects us to lecture Chinese people on their carbon emissions, when the average Scottish person’s emissions are significantly higher.
Indeed, a significant part of Chinese emissions can be attributed to making goods that benefit us.
The laptop I am writing this on was built in China.
The truth is we are all in this together.
There is no Planet B.
The UN Secretary General recently lectured all of us, saying: “What we lack – even after the Paris Agreement – is the leadership and the ambition to do what is needed”.
So when Clark Cross asks, do we really think that the developing world will not use the world’s supply of fossil fuels, the answer is an emphatic yes.
We have the intelligence to know that fossil fuels are not cheap.
Their cost to us is simply unsustainable.
We in the developed world have the capacity to set an example that can be followed.
Separately, Malcolm Parkin (Letters, September 29) seems to want us to believe that climate scientists are unfamiliar with the variations of the Earth’s path around the sun that can affect our climate.
It doesn’t take much more than a look at the Wikipedia page on these Milankovitch Cycles to see these are hardly the most relevant thing to our current climate change.
If Malcolm Parkin’s descendants are around in 50,000 years time, they can argue the point then.
More pertinent to our lives now is another thing the UN Secretary General said: “Far too few have acted with the vision the science demands”.
Gordon Pay.
Eden Park,
Cupar.
Study suggests action needed
Sir, – Malcolm Parkin is quite right in his assertion that there are natural changes relating to the Earth which precipitate climate change and indeed initiate ice ages (Letters, September 29).
These are the Milankovitch Cycles, the three main components being changes in orbital eccentricity, axial tilt and precession.
These changes, however, take place on time scales of 100,000, 41,000 and 23,000 years.
As such, climatic changes involving these cycles are extremely long term.
Meanwhile, those who are concerned that global warming and climatic changes are happening are seeing change on a much reduced time scale.
Changes relating to the Milankovitch Cycles would not be obvious for many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years but we know tropospheric temperature has risen measurably in no more than 100 years.
I have been studying ice in the mesosphere for 13 years with the help of many observers throughout Europe and UK and the results gained by these observations and analyses have been compared with data from NASA’s AIM satellite since 2007.
The findings are showing that ice in the mesosphere is increasing and the polar mesospheric clouds are extending polewards.
This is important because it suggests that additional water vapour in the upper atmosphere is the result of additional methane which dissociates in the stratosphere.
The increased atmospheric methane is produced by thawing permafrost and methane hydrates from warming oceans.
I do not definitively state this atmospheric warming is because of human intervention but I feel that there is a very good case to think that it may be.
My concern is that, if governments allow a two degree increase in atmospheric temperature, we may see a runaway situation where natural methane production cannot be stopped.
We will, of course, recover from such a situation as, eventually, the Milankovitch Cycles will bring atmospheric cooling and another ice age but by that time life on Earth may be significantly reduced,
Ken Kennedy.
80 Torridon Road,
Broughty Ferry.
Hypocrisy is astonishing
Sir, – I am a little confused by the latest utterances of Ruth Davidson who has ruled out the holding of a second independence referendum in Scotland until at least 2027.
There was also a Ruth Davidson in 2016 who said “constitutionally the UK Government shouldn’t block another referendum”.
It is, of course, not for Ms Davidson to decide if there should be a referendum, but is a matter for the Scottish people.
It was also more than a little amusing that around the same time as Ms Davidson’s pronouncements, her Conservative colleague and UK Government Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in his Conference speech compared the EU to the “prison” of the Soviet Union as it tries to prevent member states from leaving.
This hypocrisy of the Conservatives truly beggars belief.
Alex Orr.
2/3 Marchmont Road,
Edinburgh.
