Today our correspondents discuss the need for people to clear the snow from outside their properties, ask why the unemployed aren’t clearing snow, the good the Catholic church has done, the SNP’s claims on the Edinburgh trams and the case for independence.
Town dwellers should start shovelling snow Sir In around 1985 we started advertising cross-country skiing to boost winter sales of our holiday accommodation in Glenprosen. It immediately stopped snowing reliably during the winter.
Unlike then, our road is now cleared reliably and at weekends and the potential for this business rises again.
Congratulations must go to Angus Council for their efforts during the current spell of bad weather. However, the apparent inability of most folk living in our towns and cities to lift a shovel is shameful.
Can you please get off your backsides you people of Kirriemuir and Forfar and shift the snow outside your doors and pavements.
In parts of Germany it is a legal requirement to clear the pavement and the public road outside your house if the public plough cannot make it.
Shift it when it is easy, before it freezes, as we do, because we have to in the Glens. Don’t blame the council when someone falls over on the ice outside your shop door, or you can’t move your car for a week.
Hector MacLean.Balnaboth,Kirriemuir.
Jobless should clear highways
Sir, Can someone please tell me why with the week of bad weather we have just experienced and with so many roads left untreated, why able-bodied unemployed men have not been given shovels and sent out to clear the snow?
It was done back in 1947, so why not today?
By the way, I would just like to say a big thank you to all the bus drivers who did their best to keep us all moving.
(Mrs) June Reid.12 Findhorn Street,Fintry,Dundee.
Overlooking good of church
Sir, Why does Stefan Morkis (December 3) not give it a rest? We’ve got the message: he wants the Pope to sort out all the child-molesting priests and apologise for their sins in the past and for his failure to deal with them.
I am a practising Presbyterian but I do not share Stefan’s enthusiasm for priest and Pope-bashing. There will always be evil men and women in all walks of life. There have been many cases of child molesters across the denominations. There are no doubt a few in newspaper offices.
Yes, we should all like the Catholic Church to defrock offending priests and to ensure as far as possible that child molesting and other illegal practices are eradicated from its organisation. On the other hand, the Christian Church has been a power for good in thousands of ways through the centuries.
Mother Teresa is only one of many battalions of Christians who have brought untold benefits to mankind. Many liberal reformers were devout Christians Wilberforce and the anti-slavery laws, Elizabeth Fry and prison reform, Florence Nightingale and nursing.
We even owe the foundation of our schools, universities and libraries and the preservation of much of Greek and Roman culture, including fundamental ideas as democracy and freedom of speech, to the Christian monasteries which carried the torch through the dangers and devastation of the Dark Ages to the days of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment.
To counterbalance Stefan Morkis’s attacks, would it not be appropriate for you to run articles on the good that the Christian Church including the Church of Rome has done for the past 2000 years?
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Attempt to mask broken promise
Sir, David Morrison accuses me and my Conservative MSP colleagues of voting to divert spending away from A9 improvements to spending on the Edinburgh trams.
This is simply untrue but is typical of SNP lies and spin deployed in a desperate attempt to deflect criticism away from their broken promise to dual the road.
At the time of the Parliamentary vote on the trams project in 2007, it was made crystal clear by the SNP Government that the trams money could not have been diverted to the roads budget but could only be spent on “public transport projects that tackle congestion, connectivity and journey times in Edinburgh and across Scotland.”
This is a matter of public record and any SNP attempt to now rewrite history is as deplorable as it is dishonest.
In 1974, the then Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland, Gordon Campbell, signed the orders for the creation of the current A9, which, despite its imperfections, delivered massive economic benefits.
I doubt that we will ever see a similar investment in transport infrastructure in this area from this or any future SNP Government.
Murdo Fraser MSP.The Control Tower,Perth Airport,Scone.
Scotland can go it alone
Sir, I see that some British Nationalist readers are taking delight in the Irish problems but I understand that there is nothing wrong with the Irish economy which has a trade surplus.
They have had to borrow £70billion to sort out their banks. That’s the problem. England (Scotland is an extension of England) is borrowing £140billion and has a trade deficit.
One of your correspondents says that the oil and gas are running out. Ted Heath said that they would run out by 1979 but they are still discovering new fields.
Another says that our electricity will also fail and we will be at the mercy of the Germans and French. Presumably the Baltic states would be in the same position, but I do not think they are shaking in their shoes.
Why do some people take delight in the assumed fact that Scotland is the only country in the world that cannot stand on its own feet?
Gerry McGuigan.24 Forebank Road,Dundee.
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