Sir, – It is odd to note that according to senior Cabinet minister Michael Gove goods coming to the UK from the EU next year will face border checks (February 12).
I describe this as odd as during the election campaign Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised “there won’t be checks” for goods crossing the Irish sea and claimed a leaked Treasury document about checks on the Northern Ireland border was “wrong”.
He commented that the deal allows the whole of the UK to come out of the EU including Northern Ireland and the only checks that would happen, would be if something was coming from GB via Northern Ireland and was going on to the Republic.
In that situation there might be checks at the border into Northern Ireland.
However, in his speech Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has now confirmed that import controls on EU goods at the border will be imposed after the transition period ends on December 31 and said border checks would apply to “almost everybody”.
The UK, he noted, will be outside of the single market and outside the customs union, so we will have to be prepared for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow.
Yet another sad example of where telling the truth, even by a prime minister, is totally irrelevant.
Alex Orr.
2/3 Marchmont Road,
Edinburgh.
Bridge solution is ferry bad
Sir, – Maybe David McEwan Hill is correct in that “Boris’s bridge to nowhere” (Courier, February 12) might not be a practical idea and his idea to build big ferries could be a better idea.
However, it would be important the Scottish Government could not be involved in the building of the ferries based on the Ferguson yard catastrophe currently being experienced, with two ferries under construction for the last four years.
It could be that there is not a shipyard in Scotland suitable to build big ferries and they would have to be built in England.
Who would the idiots and halfwits be then I wonder?
Mev Braid.
Kinkell Ave,
Glenrothes.
Boris bridge is not going to fly
Sir, – The proposal to build a combined road and rail link across the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland connecting Portpatrick with Whitehead would be a huge boost to trade and the economies of both countries as well as placing the neglected south west of Scotland on a major route.
Sadly a 1,000 foot deep sea trench, Beaufort’s Dyke, rules out a tunnel and makes a bridge impractical.
In the trench are millions of tons of munitions containing phosphorus, phosgene and the nerve agents Tabun and Sarin, dumped there after last century’s wars, which must not be disturbed.
The weather in the channel is uniquely vile, we would need huge road and rail improvements on the Scottish side and, to cap it all, Irish trains run on a broad gauge track incompatible with the standard gauge used in Britain and mainland Europe.
Forget it Boris – this one isn’t going to fly!
Dr John Cameron.
10 Howard Place,
St Andrews.
Focus efforts on building bridges
Sir, – When did Murdo Fraser MSP and Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP become civil engineers renowned for their bridge building skills?
The reason I ask is that with the disruption caused by ice falling from the Queensferry Crossing, Mr Fraser’s comments on radio and Mr Cole-Hamilton’s tweet seemed to imply that they knew best.
Better than all the rest of the qualified experts working on solution investigation.
Mr Cole-Hamilton’s tweet has been roundly criticised for being wrong, not just inaccurate but not true.
He stated the bridge design was such that it should never close, whereas the statement made by the design team, closure was made regarding high winds only.
In his commentary Mr Fraser said the Scottish Government had known about this problem for 11 months and no action had been taken to solve it.
I am not a civil engineer but I would like to provide an insight as to the complexity of this.
There are several bridges throughout the world that have this problem.
One in Canada uses chains to knock the ice off, but the bridge closes to do this.
If these MSPs were /are truly gifted in building bridges can I ask that they refrain from making wild and/or inaccurate sound bites and support the offices of the experts to find a solution.
Alistair Ballantyne.
10 Hillpark Drive,
Dundee.
Wrong to stir up hostility
Sir, – Reading Dave Coull’s letter in the Courier (Beware the Tory love bomb, Courier, February 11), I am surprised it passed the editorial process, such was the venom contained against Conservative Party politicians, to say nothing of historical inaccuracy and absence of fact to support allegations.
Mr Coull seems to forget the “austerity” programme in UK politics was caused by the former Labour chancellor and prime minister, our own Gordon Brown, who massively overspent the UK budget and created an economic deficit that was inherited by the Tories, who imposed much needed fiscal discipline to balance the books.
To suggest the Conservative Government and before that, the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition deliberately withheld funding from Scotland is simply fatuous nonsense.
What about the shipbuilding contracts awarded to Scottish yards by the Ministry of Defence?
What about the fact that funding per-capita to Scotland via the Barnett formula outstrips that spent in England ?
The real difficulty in Scotland is the poor government record by the SNP.
It has a track record of appointing failing ministers into key jobs, and creating fears among potential investors, both within the UK and overseas, that independence ideology poses a grave risk to future investment returns.
It is business that creates jobs and puts food on family tables.
It is not the aspirations of SNP politicians who seem quite unable to inspire anyone beyond their supporters of emotional ideology.
Derek Farmer.
Knightsward Farm,
Anstruther.
The kindness of strangers
Sir, – I would like to thank two strangers who came to my rescue when my bicycle suffered a mechanical failure on February 7 near Blairingone.
In the freezing cold, I had been trying to hitch a ride but no one stopped.
After 20 minutes, a lovely lady stopped to pick me up and went out of her way to drop me at Cowdenbeath railway station.
Pierrette, thank you!
As I then stood in the High Street trying to find a coffee shop before getting on train, a shop owner noticed me shivering and came out, asking me if I wanted to rest in her shop.
Apart from the practical help offered by both women, their kindness was very “warming”.
Thanks to both.
John Taylor.
Hillpark Gardens,
Edinburgh.