On today’s agenda: support for the English football team, disappointment at changes to The Courier, the Gaza flotilla, the Harris Holiday Song and the biomass plant plan for Dundee harbour.
England cup glory would boost Scots
Sir,-Scotland boss Craig Levein, Rangers manager Walter Smith and a host of major names in Scottish football have stated their wish to see England do well at the World Cup.
They argue that a repeat of 1966 glory will give the whole of the UK a lift.
The experience of playing alongside world beaters in the Barclays Premier League will give young Scots a boost. For these reasons, is it too much to ask the Tartan Army to get behind our neighbours?
Bob Ferguson.North Muirton,Perth.
London Diary will be missed
Sir,-I was very disappointed to read that last Saturday’s London Diary was to be the last.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this every week and will miss it greatly as it was always varied, informative and interesting.
At first, I was also disappointed to discover that no-one else will be taking over from our man in London.
On reflection, he set such a high standard that he would be a hard act to follow.
I can only wish him well for the future and thank him for all his diaries.
M. Anthony.14 Millhill,Monifieth.
Humanitarian aid shields violence
Sir,-Flora Selwyn (June 3) is right to ask why the media rarely questions the false testimony of so-called “humanitarian activists”.
Where is the reported concern of Israeli families whose sons and daughters had to challenge the violence of these activists in a similar manner as our own forces in Afghanistan or recently in Iraq and Northern Ireland?
This most recent attempt to circumvent the blockade of the terror regime in Gaza, while armed to the teeth with knives, spears, metal batons and ball-bearing slingshots and shielded behind women and children, was anything but humanitarian.
Any aid, from Dundee or elsewhere, could and should have been sent through the proper channels via the Red Cross or the UN agencies.
These are procedures well known to constituency and regional MSPs, including those supportive of the ill-conceived flotilla.
Those who did know better and should have counselled against such reckless behaviour are equally responsible for the deaths and injuries that ensued.
Stanley Grossman.Newton Mearns,Glasgow.
Rebels on song at Harris
Sir,-As a former pupil of Harris Academy, Dundee, I must agree with Rosemary Matheson-Dear (June 2) that the Harris Holiday Song, in its traditional form, struck a happy chord and made one feel that the summer break had really begun.
However, my mother, who was a pupil at the old Harris building in Park Place, delighted in telling how in the 1920s an official attempt to introduce a new holiday song was drowned out by former pupils, joined by pupils of that time, making a noisy but successful attempt to keep the holiday song which is thankfully still in use today.
John Crichton.6 Northampton Place,Forfar.
NIMBYs threaten Dundee’s future
Sir,-The NIMBYs, aka RATTs, do not appear to have any concept of how nonsensical the arithmetic of their latest scaremongering claim is.
They appear to be making hysterical claims about the number of lorries needed to take fuel into the biomass plant. It appears to have escaped their attention that the point of locating the plant at the port is that most of the fuel will be brought in by sea. But even putting that to one side, do they expect us to believe that six lorries per minute will be coming to the port?
That is 360 per hour, 2880 per working day and 14,400 per working week and that’s without overtime.
Are there that many lorries in Scotland? Will there be room for any other traffic in Dundee? If each lorry is 30-feet long there will be a permanent two-mile queue of lorries waiting to get into the port every hour.
There are approximately 250 people who work in the port area. If each one of them is on the average wage of £24,000, taking out 30% for tax and NI, that represents £4.2 million being spent in the Dundee area every single year.
If Forth Ports can attract another 250 jobs to the port, that’s another £4.2 million being spent every single year and so on.
These workers don’t put this money under their bed. They spend it in shops, pubs, restaurants and housing, which keeps a whole load of other people in jobs.
I am amazed that RATTs, whose main problem seems to be the prospect of a couple of thousand pounds off the value of their houses, can’t work this out. Or is it just their potential loss that’s important and the rest of Dundee’s population’s hopes for a bright future for the city can go hang?
Jim Duthie.Gray Street,Broughty Ferry.