Sir, In reply to my letter, Free Church Moderator David Robertson demonstrates his Christian response by referring to the “fear-mongering of the atheistic secularists”.
Not all members of the Scottish Secular Society are atheist and I resent the slurs he aims atmembers who are.
Mr Robertson goes on to claim that “not a penny is handed out to religious organisations to enable them to spread their faith”.
What does he make of the £300,000 grant for a joint Catholic-Jewish faith school in Newton Mearns announced only last week? He mentions the tens of thousandsof people the Trussell Trust feeds and thencunningly asks: “Is this what the ScottishSecular Society are objecting to?”
Was this a deliberate attempt to misleadreaders into thinking we were?
As a regular poster on Facebook’s SecularScotland, he should know the SSS publicly support the work of the Trussell Trust.
Garry Otton. Secretary, ScottishSecular Society, Broughton Street, Edinburgh.
Scots betrayed by union vow
Sir, I thank RHLMulheron for hisencouragement to keep on promoting independence for Scotland(September 14).
I hope and believe that the number of Scots “driven towards the union” by my arguments will be tiny and will be exceeded by thosepersuaded by them.
Don’t take my word for it. The evidence is clear that many thousands of Scots feel betrayed by the vow, see it as the ruse it was and would nowcertainly vote forindependence which is a noble aspiration, unlike the churlish and pejorative separation and secession the unionist press favours come another referendum.
Personally, I am glad yes didn’t win by a few hundred votes. Thebitterness and obstruction which would have been hurled at us by the British union would have been very divisive and unpleasant.
I am content to hope and work for a second referendum which I believe we willcomfortably win.
David Roche. Hill House, Beech Hill Road, Coupar Angus.
British held in low esteem
Sir, – John Cameron of (September 14) has drawn our attention to what he sees as Britain bashing by having a cheap shot at the SNP among others, notappreciating that British leadership over the years has ensured that such bashing is self inflicted.
It may seem unbelievable to the rule Britannia brigade that anyone should criticise the British but those of us who spent any time with British occupying forces in various parts of the world know too well the low esteem in which theBritish were held.
He questions America’s apparently passive role in the refugee crisis by pointing out that the USA were the prime cause of the problems in the Middle East.
He fails to mention that the US was readily supported by the British led by Tony Blair.
He may console himself that that was under the leadership of Labour but there is no record of mass opposition from Tory MPs at the time.
He also noted that Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to take 1,000 refugees into Scotland was tokenism because she knows they will head to London.
Perhaps he should give consideration to the possibility that the refugees’ likely reason for leaving Scotland could be the attitude of some inhabitants.
Allan MacDougall. 37 Forth Park, Bridge of Allan.
Libraries fight must go on
Sir, Many of us know that 16 of our libraries in Fife, out of a total of 51, are under threat.
Until I attended a meeting in Markinch last Monday, I didn’t realise that they are also being run incompetently.
The representative from Fife Cultural Trust told us that he had only just discovered that mobile libraries have been calling in his street for years.
If he, as someone involved in running our libraries, was not aware of the routes of the mobile fleet, how are we as potential userssupposed to know?
No wonder that units have been stopping in certain towns andvillages for years without a single customer.
As a long-term Green Party member I am determined to keep our libraries open many unemployed people use their local library for job-seeking and to useinternet services but I am also challenging Fife Council to properlymanage and fully utilise our fleet of mobile libraries.
The assertion that the cultural trust can reduce their number from three to two, but still run them more efficiently, is clearly absurd.
Unemployed people who use the libraries at Glenwood, Pitteuchar, Markinch and Falkland would, under the trust’s plans, have to pay from £2.50 to £5.60 return fares to get to the overcrowded facilities at the Kingdom Centre.
Many would have to do that most weekdays to meet WestminsterGovernment Jobseeker requirements.
That is not the way to help people get jobs. That is the way to punish people for the “crime” of being unemployed in more rural areas.
At the very least, if they persevere with theirdecision to close 16 of our libraries, they must ensure that our mobile libraries offer adequate internet access to both job seekers and people who face particulardifficulties.
Lorna Ross. Scottish Green Party, Glenrothes.
Good work has come to nought
Sir, The recent choice by Labour Party members of Jeremy Corbyn as their new leader leads me to one thought.
All the good work done by Neil Kinnock to make the party electable, by getting rid of the “loony left”, has come to nought.
Throughout Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s premierships, Mr Kinnock worked steadily to prepare the way for a sensible Labour government to be chosen by the British people and was followed by a man of similar mould, John Smith.
Labour became aworthy opposition for us Conservatives.
Too worthy, in fact, and 13 years of Labour in government followed.
I fear the election of Mr Corbyn has set Labour back many years.
AT Geddie. Carleton Avenue, Glenrothes.
Madras buses a matter of debate
Sir, I would like to thank Bill Sangster for clarifying the situation regarding the number of buses expected to carry pupils to the new Madras College from “72 or more” to a projected 19 in the morning and again in the afternoon.
As for congestion, in view of the catchment area, not all will bepassing through the town.
Some will be heading to rural areas to the south and othersalong the coast, which I expect would use Lamond Drive should the new school be built at Pipeland.
Mr Sangster andothers have notcommented on the many school buses presently using South Street, avery busy thoroughfare with narrow streets, when servicing Madras South Street or the busesserving the Kilrymont building and wending their way throughresidential streets.
Colin Topping. Crathes Close, Glenrothes.
Alarm bells set off by refugees
Sir, There is a remarkable contrast between how theUnited Kingdom and other northern European countries runour societies and how we run our immigrationpolicies.
No business, large or small, hires temporary staff with the degree of recklessness thatGermany, Sweden and indeed Britain are accepting Third World migrants who manage to reach our borders.
The very first principle of recruitment is “don’t hire liabilities”.
Young unaccompanied adult males frommisogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic cultures tick several boxes inany rational risk assessment.
That the majority of the refugees and other migrants at Calais could fit this profile should set off alarm bells in bothBritain and France.
All the more so given that they are willing to repeatedly break the law to get to the UK.
The same is true of a great many of the migrants making their way across Europeto Germany and Sweden.
Experience teachesus that western European countries all too often fail to integrate and instil our culture into migrants.
The banlieues of France and the young men from all over Europe who have gone to fight for ISIS confirm this.
We should apply aprudent degree of risk assessment to all these migrants and bar all those who fail theassessment.
Otto Inglis. Ansonhill, Crossgates.
Europe throws out rule book
Sir, Under pressure from an unthinking media, prompted by the picture of one poor dead child, Europe hasdiscarded the immigration rule book and now does not know who istaking the opportunity of becoming an asylum seeker in order to bypass the usual procedures, to quickly get to where they want to be, for whatever purpose.
We may regret some of this good-heartedliberalism.
Malcolm Parkin. Gamekeepers Road, Kinnesswood.
Drowning in research
Sir, Researchscientists have stated that burning all of the world’s availablefossil-fuel resources would completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet, resulting in a 200-feet rise in sea levels.
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research predicts that Antarctica would lose ice over the next 10,000 years and sea levels would rise up to three metres per century.
They are funded by the European Commission which, of course, is EU taxpayers.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) havepreviously said that by the end of this century a rise of between 30cm and 50cm was possible but Nils-Axel Morner, a sea-level specialist for40 years, suggested it would be a maximum of 20cm.
So their predictions are far less thanPotsdam.
However, governments will latch on to the Potsdam research to impose more punitive green taxes and the green brigade will be writhing in ecstasy.
It rather makes one wonder why EUtaxpayers are forced to fund doomsday scenario research papers.
Clark Cross. Springfield Road, Linlithgow.