Sir, – Whilst I have nothing against eating only plants, the statement that this lifestyle can help save the planet is not based on fact.
Only 25% of the UK can be continuously cropped, leaving 40% which is currently under livestock production, fallow.
Food shortages would arise very quickly.
Animals convert hostile topography into food.
The UK is not alone in this. For example arid desert countries use goats, sheep and camels.
If a resident of Tiree, for example, wanted to have a plant-based diet, what would they eat that was grown locally?
The carbon footprint of imported food which is out of season in the UK is horrendous. In Scotland we only have a 180-day growing season.
So by all means eat plants, but do so in the full knowledge of the unsustainability of that extreme lifestyle.
I did try to write to Mimi Bekhechi direct, but she didn’t have the strength to put her address on her letter .
I’m just away to have a massive steak pie for tea.
William Halley.
The Old Dairy,
West Lochlane, Crieff.
Johnson and Jack cannot resist Scottish will
Sir, – It is striking to note Scottish Secretary of State Alister Jack has ruled out a second referendum on independence even if the SNP won a majority at next year’s Holyrood election (Secretary of state advises PM to refuse Indyref call, Courier, January 13).
This is strange because a gentleman, also called Alister Jack, in the run up to the general election last month conceded that an SNP majority would be sufficient to trigger a second referendum.
The SNP won a landslide victory in that election– winning 80% on a mandate for an independence referendum, while the Tories lost more than half their MPs.
This was on a platform of stopping Scotland’s right to choose.
Nineteenth-century Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell famously noted that “no man has the right to fix the boundary of a nation.
“No man has the right to say to his country: ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’.”
How appropriate a statement that is in this context.
The Smith Agreement, following the 2014 independence referendum, also noted that “It is agreed that nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”
Scotland’s future must be in Scotland’s hands, and it is not for Boris Johnson or his apparatchiks to resist.
Alex Orr.
Flat 3, 2 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh.
Long catalogue of SNP failure
Sir, – In his letter (An unequal partnership, Courier, January 13) Ken Clark berates members of Scotland in Union (SiU) and asks why they “fail to ask why Scots continue to vote for SNP governance?”
This is a question which I and an ever increasing numbers of fellow Scots are asking when they see that SNP governance is resulting in ever more failures in many of the already devolved areas.
These powers include the NHS, education, policing, roads, rail, ferries, planning, environment, justice, income tax, property/land tax, council tax, air travel tax, forestry, Crown Estate (Scotland) and some 19 potentially poverty reducing benefit areas which remain largely unused.
Their ever more strident calls for a second indy referendum is used daily to blame the Westminster government for these failures.
It is a time and energy consuming total distraction from the fundamental areas of governance and creates ever wider division within Scotland.
For the record, I am not a member of SiU but a born and bred Scot.
G M Lindsay.
Whinfield Gardens,
Kinross.
Inappropriate to politicise Saltire
Sir, – Further to my letter of January 8.
I appreciate the comments of Dan Wood (Saltire a major concern, Courier, January 10) and also of Jane Phillips (What flag should the SNP use?, Courier, January 11).
I am a reasonably intelligent professional woman and have worked for many years for the benefit of the welfare and economy of my country.
I am well aware of the history of the flag and its proper use.
What angers me is the SNP daubing the flag with YES, thus politicising and defacing it as happened during the referendum and can still be seen today.
As for Ms Phillips’ question, I think the SNP could have a flag black on one side with a tiny yes in one corner and yellow on the other with a large no.
That is how the majority of the Scottish people think and feel.
Moira Bowman.
40 Collingwood Street,
Broughty Ferry.
Is PRI now the poor relation?
Sir, – I read in The Courier about the 1,000-plus patients being transferred from PRI to Ninewells Hospital.
Is it because PRI is so badly understaffed?
If so, the cutbacks to our local hospital are quite shameful.
Whoever makes these decisions? They obviously have no idea of the inconvenience and distress to A&E patients.
PRI has already lost a consultant-led maternity unity (now downgraded to a midwife-led one) and the heart and stroke unit now also transferred to Dundee.
So, I have to ask, just what treatments are now available at PRI?
Are any operations being carried out?
I feel that the people of Perth are being kept in the dark over the situation at PRI and at NHS Tayside.
It would be good to hear what PRI staff think, as an excellent Infirmary is in charge of being downgraded to a cottage hospital.
Alister Y. Allan.
18 Castle View,
Letham, Perth.
Tourism push after hedge cut
Sir, – On behalf of Blairgowrie and Rattray Community Council I would like to thank Sam Mercer Nairne and Perth and Kinross Council for getting the Beech Hedge at Meikleour cut, 20 years after the last full cut.
This is an iconic landmark in the Blairgowrie/Perthshire area and will now show, proudly, its splendour to locals and tourists alike.
There have been many discussions over the last few years about this work needing to be done and we applaud that a solution was found.
Perhaps similar attention could be applied to raising the profile of the nearby ‘Cleaven Dyke’ so that this area could become a real draw for the tourists who visit Scotland.
With the attractions of the Beech Hedge and the Cleaven Dyke on our doorstep, our area may start to get the attention it deserves.
Phil Seymour.
Chairman,
Blairgowrie and Rattray Community Council.
Alarming lack of climate debate
Sir, – In September 2019, to coincide with a New York climate conference, scientists who are sceptical of the man-made warming theory invited members from the other side to a live-streamed debate in Times Square.
Not a single climate alarmist turned up.
It has always concerned me that there has never been any public debate on this, unlike for example with Brexit and Scexit.
If an alarmist were to parrot the cliché “The debate is over” I’d reply “Did I blink, did I miss it?”
Geoff Moore.
Alness,
Highland.
