Today’s correspondents discuss issues including an inquiry into Lockerbie, another target of blame for the recession, recycling and the changes to Scots law.
Supreme Court ruling victory for civil libertiesSir, The decision by the Supreme Court (October 27) to deny Scottish police forces the right to question suspects without a lawyer present is a long overdue victory for civil liberties.
There will, of course, be the usual histrionics and hyperbole from those from the hang ’em and flog ’em brigade who regard civil liberties as morally repugnant and blame the 1960s for having brought about a moral collapse in this country.
They will use their favourite stock phrases of “criminals’ charter”, “compensation culture” and the best of all, “political correctness gone mad” to try to defame this judgment.
Individual rights are not a malignant dirty phrase as some on the political right would have us believe
What the law-and-order brigade don’t ever seem to understand is that when a person is arrested, they are merely suspects.
They have not yet been convicted. That person may be completely innocent but yet the police who are interviewing them have the full power of the state on their side
It is absolutely right that in a democracy, individual rights are respected. It was precisely not having immediate access to a lawyer which made the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six confess to crimes they did not commit.Alan Hinnrichs.2 Gillespie Terrace,Dundee.Recyling habits must changeSir, I would like to respond to Isobel Johnstone (October 26). I had not appreciated that there was a lack of recycling facilities in Kinloch Rannoch. Perth and Kinross Council should provide these (including household bins) throughout its area as soon as possible.
However, the council provides a kerbside recycling service (glass apart) for over 85% of Perth and Kinross households.
But, despite this, putting the likes of cans and paper into general waste bins is still widespread and zero waste targets will not be met unless such habits can be changed.
Persuasion is clearly not working nearly well enough and old habits die hard. Where kerbside recycling is provided, when such materials are spotted in general waste bins (which will often be seen by lifting the lid) these could be stickered, explaining that bins will be emptied once recyclable materials are removed.
Clearly this cannot currently apply to glass, as some folk cannot get to recycling centres.
However, several local authorities do include glass in mixed recycling kerbside collection, so there is clearly no subsequent sorting problem and it is obviously cost effective. Perth and Kinross Council should do the same.
Alan Drever.Prospect House,Home Street,Aberfeldy.FSA must share banking blameSir, There is a feeling in the country that bankers alone are to blame for Britain’s economic problems, the consequences of which, will be reductions in public services and welfare payments and shrinkage of the public sector staff complement. I have worked in international banking for the past 35 years and am a Fellow of the Scottish Chartered Banking Institute.
The villain in this episode was the Chancellor who removed responsibility for monitoring banks from the Bank of England and handed it to the FSA which failed to properly regulate its market. The mistake of the FSA was to allow banks with long-standing and critical operations in the domestic economy, to leverage expansion for overseas acquisitions and speculative trading.
When these banks got into trouble because of foolish departures from conservative banking, the British Government had no alternative except that of nationalisation, since complete financial chaos would have ensued throughout Britain.
Contrast this with the demise of Barings in the 1990s before the creation of the FSA by Gordon Brown. Barings was not allowed by the Bank of England, to have any substantial role in the British domestic economy and, therefore, when it collapsed due to poor management controls in a hugely expanded trading operation in Asia, it caused scarcely a ripple in the economy or in the City markets. It was the shareholders and employees who lost out.
So there is not only a need for a return to old-fashioned thrift, from past years of profligate consumerism, there is a greater need now for the return of effective banking regulation and a recognition that our High Street banks should not be allowed to meddle in markets they do not understand, nor to grow beyond the capabilities of their directors to properly manage them.
Derek Farmer.14 Baird Place,Elie.New probe into Lockerbie neededSir, Dr Jim Swire is right to petition the Scottish Parliament (October 27) with a view to initiating an independent investigation into the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
My Lockerbie concerns began within hours of the crash on hearing reports of US officials on the scene gathering evidence.
Later, the testing in the US of the timer fragment was in my view wrong. The investigation should have been a matter for Scottish police. The involvement of a foreign government politicised the investigation.
Reinforcing my concerns were the reports of the UN-appointed trial observer, Professor Hans Koechler who reported that for the entire period of the trial in The Hague, two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice sat next to the Crown Office prosecution team who they passe documents to, and talked to, as if they were supervising them. None of these US officials were listed or mentioned in any of the official trial documents.
I don’t claim to know if Megrahi is guilty or not but I do know for certain that he didn’t get a fair trial .
Tom Minogue.94 Victoria Terrace,Dunfermline.
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