Sir,- I read recently that Scottish Indian restaurants face closure due to tightened immigration rules and their inability to find local staff and recruit from the 160,000 unemployed people in Scotland.
I can think of four possible reasons for this the employers pay below the minimum wage, they don’t want to take on locals and train them, despite recent reforms it is still better to stay on benefits or, as one owner said: “the difficulty is attracting new recruits from within Scotland including the children of the first generation of owners and chefs who are prepared to work long hours and master the art of cooking the cuisine.”
The SNP’s response was “Immigration policy is reserved to UK Government however, the Scottish Government continues to urge the UK Government to take into account Scotland’s differing immigration needs.”
In effect, it’s all Westminster’s fault.
But the SNP is fully in charge of education, vocational training and tourism.
We’re not talking about nuclear physicists here, but good, skilled, well-paid jobs.
The average pay for a head chef is around £24,000 the same as a trained NHS radiographer earns.
Why can’t the SNP work with the industry to train and encourage local people to do these jobs?
Avoiding immigration might also have an impact on the housing crisis.
Every immigrant taking the job a local unemployed person could do effectively doubles the housing requirement, as both people need accommodation.
Allan Sutherland, 1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.
Responsibilities of dog owners
Sir,- Considering the fact that this is the time for new year resolutions, here is one for inconsiderate dog owners who freely allow their dogs to defecate on pavements and children’s parkland.
Please show responsibility and concern for others who have to walk on these areas, and clean up after your dogs.
A packet of 150 tidy bags costs £1 and would have a huge impact on the local environment.
I often find myself cleaning up beside others’ waste, and if I can do it, so can they.
We seem currently to live in a lazy, unconcerned and selfish world where some believe they can do entirely as they please.
I believe there may be plans afoot to impose penalties on dog walkers who are found not carrying any means of cleaning up, and not before time I would suggest.
David L Thomson, 24 Laurence Park, Kinglassie, Fife.
The fallacy of global warming
Sir,- The present disastrous floods affecting the UK’s people and infrastructure will be blamed on all sorts of things.
David Cameron had to face the anger of flooded out victims although he at least took the trouble to see the devastation for himself lamely followed by others during later days.
The chairman of the Government’s environmental board was quite rightly pulled home from Barbados, where he thought he was keeping nicely abreast of things.
Not the point. Bad weather was clearly forecast. Expenses for this trip need to be examined.
If rainfall is to increase, then we must return to the old custom of dredging riverbeds and keeping ditches free of debris.
Concerns for wildlife from some quarters must be ignored.
These floods destroy wildlife just as they destroy human habitation. People must come first.
The creation of wetlands must be confined to remote areas, or cease.
A computerised map of the El Nio area of the South Pacific indicated that the ocean there was so hot you could boil an egg in it. Not so. Let us calm down.
What is meant by a low-carbon environment or atmosphere/world?
We stoop to the level of accusing dairy herds’ flatulence of fouling the air. Nonsense.
Carbon is widely used as an essential material in aviation, automotive and white goods electric motors and generators.
I am amazed that some people can peddle their dubious environmental wares to the gullible politicians of the Western world and believe it themselves.
Has anyone considered the new phenomenon of mass electronic radiation bouncing and shooting through the atmosphere as we use our phones, computers, broadband TV, radio and radar much of which punctures the atmosphere seeking its remote satellite? Any effect on the
Earth’s magnetic field?
We need carbon and CO2.
According to the National Geographic Magazine there has been substantial sunspot activity over the last two years.
Whether connected or not, it is clear that the jetstream controls our weather, and has not been kind to our neck of the woods recently.
Not global warming.
Bring it on, if only to get a better summer than last year.
AT Geddie, 68 Carleton Ave, Glenrothes.
The climate has always changed
Sir,- Walter Attwood (letters December 31) will accept the following truths first, no-one denies our climate has always changed and second, that floods have occurred often, worse than at present.
The Perth bridge shows flood levels reached variably, over centuries, since before the industrial revolution, much higher than now.
Inconveniently for climate alarmists, there has been no significant global warming, as measured by satellites, for nearly two decades, while atmospheric CO2 levels have risen.
Computer models predicting rising temperatures have been confounded.
Thus, the always hypothetical, unprovable, unproven theories “warmists” depend on are wrong, probably because of multiple confounding variables inadvertently omitted from calculated predictions.
The scientific analyses of the “alarmists” have proved quite inadequate for prediction of the observed truth.
As to the floods and other adverse events Mr Attwood attributes to global warming, the real, practical question is what is to be done in prevention.
Dredging of river courses, banned here by EU orders for several years, after centuries-old custom, is an obviously relevant factor in flood causation and prevention.
This urgently needs revision, as does building on flood plains.
International agreement on control of CO2 output, impoverishing and of unproven effectiveness, will not in any case be reached, as other correspondents have rightly emphasised.
Therefore, the answers must lie in avoiding building on flood plains and in the resumption of dredging of water courses, as always in former times.
Dr Charles Wardrop, 111 Viewlands Rd West, Perth.
Voters are no longer fooled
Sir,- John Cameron (letters December 31) refers to a “one-party state”.
For decades the UK has been a one-party state, with the London establishment running the country for their own benefit.
We have been able to choose between a blue, red or yellow establishment, but it has made no discernible difference to the policies inflicted on us.
Scotland uses proportional voting at all levels of governance and the only reason the SNP have an overall majority here is because more than half of Scots support them.
Compare this to the current UK Tory government, which only has the support of around a quarter of the electorate.
Scots are no longer fooled by the addition of the word “Scottish” in front of the names of the London parties.
Why would anyone in Scotland want to vote for a politician whose party is solely focused on London and the south-east when they can vote for real Scottish parties like the SNP, Greens, Scottish Socialist Party and Rise?
Paradoxically, the only way for the establishment parties to increase their vote here is to sever their ties with London, which will happen automatically when we get independence.
Andrew Collins, Ladyburn House, Skinners Steps, Cupar.
Iran can be no ally of Scotland
Sir,- After his taxpayer funded junket to Iran and the sanitised view of its day-to-day existence, which his hosts permitted him to have, Alex Salmond dutifully proposed (December 28) that Iran will be a suitable future ally for Scotland.
If we are to believe what our ex-First Minister says, then Iran has changed overnight, and that its previous deep seated hatred for Western civilisation is now a thing of the past.
The decision to “unfreeze” Iran’s $400 billion comes from the highly dubious anti-nuclear deal recently agreed in Teheran with, primarily, the USA.
There are many people the world over who have major doubts that Iran can be transparently held to its side of the terms.
Time will tell if Iran is genuine, but meantime it is for its leaders to prove that beyond any reasonable doubt.
They will also have to prove they are intent on becoming a true democracy, something that is very far off at the moment.
Significant suspicions exist in many quarters that the ideals from the era of Ayatollah Khomeini are still very much alive within Iranian society, and expect it to continue its quest for its own nuclear arsenal.
Alex Salmond and his SNP cohorts are clearly willing to do business, at any price, with anyone at all who might assist them to break up the United Kingdom.
In living memory, the best allies Scotland has ever had are the good people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The most peaceful time the UK has experienced domestically has been since the Act of Union in 1707.
The UK would not have prevailed in the two great wars if its bonds had disintegrated.
Despite the modern-day terrorist threats we increasingly face, we have a secure and prosperous way of life within the strength of the union.
Our brave armed forces and our nuclear deterrent underpin that fortunate position.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would strive to maintain it, but not the SNP.
Cut out the fantasy Alex, concentrate on representing your constituency, and deal with the real issues such as the chaos that exists north of the border in
the NHS, police, education, transport and local government finances, to name but a few.
Jim Shaw, Hill Street, Dundee.