Readers' Letters: Scotland should take on blocked Ming Yang wind turbine project

A quick Google search brings up 18 Scottish entrepreneurs, surely one (or a consortium) should be encouraged – maybe by a short term “set-up subsidy” – to pick up this project and kick it back into life. There must already be an area agreed, and detailed plans available, held by the Scottish government.

Between them, the entrepreneurs and the experienced workforce should be able to source the raw materials, make and deliver the components required, assemble the components and install the turbines. If Seagreen, and the Scandinavians, can do it, why not Scotland?

The benefits? Demonstration of competence of Scots to grab the initiative and turn a grievance into an opportunity that helps make Scotland both self-sufficient and a leader in renewables.

A massive electoral boost to any political party that made that a commitment – a massive uplift in support for votes in the north east, where we are told upwards of 100,000 experienced engineers are waiting for their “just transition”. Just in time for the elections!

No security issue

Possibly even export possibilities – something for the little “embassies” to get their teeth into.

Peter Burke, Carnoustie, Angus

Fair pay is the goal

Some public servants are to have a day off to mark the Scotland football team reaching the World Cup finals. Hip, hip, hooray!

In other words those public servants will be paid, by the taxpayer, for not working on 15 June 2026. Will the Scottish government's largesse extend to giving Scottish pensioners and benefit recipients the equivalent of a day's additional payment?

Robert L D Cooper, Edinburgh

Good riddance

What is the May election for? I understood it was to elect MSPs to Holyrood to represent the interests of the whole of Scotland, who would consider matters concerning, and introduce legislation pertaining to, the clearly defined devolved issues for which Holyrood is responsible.

Now I see Ni Holmes (Letters, 27 March) telling us they are voting “so that in the near future the people of Scotland can make our own independent choice”. This, of course, is what the leader of the SNP also tells us. John Swinney has also told us that we are voting to remove Keir Starmer from office.

Perhaps one of these nationalists will tell us where “independence” or “Keir Starmer” will figure on the ballot paper?

Catriona C Clark (Letters, same day) compounds nationalist delusion by telling us we owe retiring MSPs “a debt of gratitude”. For collecting £75,000 a year and, in the case of SNP MSPs, nodding like donkeys to pass SNP legislation or block other parties’ measures? I do regret the retirement of Conservative Tess White, who has been a doughty fighter in the cause of protecting women’s safe spaces – that really is worthy of gratitude.

Let’s elect, in May, new MSPs who really do put their constituents and Scotland first, instead of the voting fodder that has taken up so much space in the last five years.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Mixed bag

Well, if we needed the evidence of an explanation of irony, it is to be found in abundance in yesterday’s Letters pages (27 March).

The examples given by Alexander McKay, (“once again the irony meter has blown a fuse and is off scale”) and the contribution from Robert I G Scott (“the dissolution of Holyrood should be given some priority”) are both excellent in what they state and how they state it.

Then we get to the letter from Ni Holmes, who further blasts the irony meter with the following, “I would rather take the risk of a Chinese development in Scotland than have Westminster impose unnecessary nuclear plants on us.”

This statement underlines what the SNP think – trust a regime with horrendous human rights, one of the most aggressive countries in the world and a backer of Putin to build useless wind turbines which do not spin enough, and to hell with the cleanest manner in which to produce electricity, nuclear.

And to cap it off, we have the hankies out with Catriona C Clark stating that “many of the MSPs will experience a huge wrench as they move on to pastures new or retire from public life”. No mention of the massive pensions and severance payment, mind!

Spare me please – 90 per cent of these underachieving freeloaders have contributed absolutely nothing except division and the wrecking of politics in Scotland.

As we sing at the footy, it should be a mass choir singing “cheerio, cheerio, cheerio”!

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Political pygmies

Watching the last First Minister’s Questions on Wednesday before the election on 7 May, it was hard not to feel utterly despondent.

This feeling is on the basis that the Scottish electorate, for whatever reason, is likely to re-elect a bunch of pygmy parliamentarians to the pygmy parliament, with the majority having little or no experience in job creation, wealth creation or entrepreneurship.

The doom loop will sadly continue and we will only have ourselves to blame.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Take up cause

Recently, the Scottish Parliament voted against assisted dying for the third time, with an ever-decreasing majority. While not a supporter, I have every respect for the likes of broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who has bravely gone public on the subject.

This defeat has well and truly put the spotlight back on to the underfunded, understaffed palliative care system. Marie Curie, who take no stance on the assisted dying issue, states that palliative care should be a right, not a privilege, for all.

Surely, this is something the Scottish Parliament could take up as one of its priorities. There's a growing swell of public opinion to support this move, not along party lines, but as a conscience vote. With an aging population, the need is urgent.

Palliative care is not an “either/or” with assisted dying, but a “both/and”.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

George medal?

There will be jubilation among those who wish the UK broken up at the latest defection. George Galloway, that certain vote-winner, has performed yet another U-turn and joined their ranks, saying he will now campaign and vote for Scottish independence. He has now had more political allegiances than Tiger Woods has had golf clubs.

Things are going swimmingly for the Scexit Brigade, whose fate seems now sealed; their loss is our gain.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Wake up to drones

Russia and Iran collaborate closely on the development of an evolving range of drones, primarily long-range, one-way attack (kamikaze) drones like the Shahed-136/Geran-2 (range up to 2,500km) and the faster, jet-powered Shahed-238/Geran-3 (speed approximately 500+ km/h).

These drones, capable of GPS/satellite navigation, have been extensively used against Ukraine and in the Middle East and Gulf conflicts. They can be launched from trucks, land platforms and ships.

This is an immediate and growing threat to the UK. How so?

One of the many worrying facts that have emerged in the public is that we have minimal air defence for major naval facilities such as Portsmouth and Faslane, never mind our major cities.

Public anxieties are further heightened when you add to this the exposure of major energy infrastructure (power stations, grid, wind farms – on and offshore, oil rigs and pipelines etc,) where drone attacks from launch platforms on ships, such as Russia’s shadow fleet, represent a real and present danger.

Security experts and military chiefs have warned for some time that we are already at war in all but name.

So far politicians have failed to move from rhetoric to action. Difficult trade-offs between spending priorities must be made in favour of rapid defence upgrades. Like the Saudis, tapping into Ukrainian anti-drone know-how and expertise could/would also be useful!

Defence of the realm remains the first duty of any government! The security of everyone day-to-day depends on it – to state the obvious.

It’s time for all of us to wake up!

Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire

Trail finder

The 190-mile coast-to-coast route from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire has been designated a National Trail.

The shortest route in Britain from coast to coast is in Scotland, a rugged two or three-day walk from Ullapool to Ardgay on the Dornoch Firth, a distance of 36 miles.

This should be designated a Great Trail by Nature Scot. We already have Great Trails such as the Southern Upland Way and Great Glen Way, but such routes are too long for many.

It was the prolific outdoor writer Alfred Wainwright who devised the English coast-to-coast route.

He would have appreciated the shorter Scottish route in a country close to his heart, so much so that he wrote in his famous book, Wainwright in Scotland, that he “never had a vacation anywhere else, nor wanted to”.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

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