Custom Disqus identifier:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/election-2011/bolshie-your-questions-and-a-few-answers-1.1095368
Here is a selection of the readers’ points, many of them unanswerable to all but the most direct and honest of politicians. If such a creature exists.
We didn’t put all the questions to the politicians. If we had there would have been no time for them to go politicking. Answers we got are included below.
Bill Irvine:
I would like to ask Iain Gray, Labour leader and well known supporter of nuclear power, who pays if a nuclear power station goes pop and contaminates half a city? Household insurance policies specifically exclude damage caused by nuclear power. So who pays? I’m afraid I already know the answer.
Robert Smith, Dundee:
"If the Palestinian people in Gaza rise up against the Israeli occupiers, demanding democracy and freedom from oppression would you (all parties) endorse a no-fly zone over Israel in support of these same demands which are being made (and assisted) elsewhere in the Arab world?
As a supplementary, why is the West intervening in certain "revolutions"
and completely ignoring others?
SNP reply:
As long standing advocates of the United Nations and the primacy of international law, the SNP backs the humanitarian aims of military operations that are sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution. The fundamental principle of international intervention is that it must be done under the authority of a United Nations mandate. Any decision on future military operations must be based on this principle.
Jack Robertson, Stirling:
It is still the case that lots of perfectly good fish are thrown back into the sea because it is the wrong kind of fish that happens to be caught - just to satisfy some EC jobsworth. I think this is totally obscene in view of world food shortages and a steadily shrinking Scottish fishing industry. I'm sure that a very slightly brave Scottish Government could risk the wrath of the EC which, as far as I can see from other EC countries who regularly flout the rules, is a lot of bark but very little bite.
SNP reply:
Perhaps nothing symbolises the mismanagement of fisheries policy more than the outrageous situation of perfectly good fish being thrown back into the sea. Under the current regulations, nutritious and marketable fish that could be landed and sold is instead thrown back dead into the sea, polluting the marine environment and needlessly depriving boats of landings that could keep them afloat financially.
We need to fix the EU's broken fisheries policy because discards are a chronic waste of food and economic resource. Scotland has led Europe in seeking ways to reduce discards therefore our fishermen need to be at the heart of finding the solutions. Since 2008 discards by Scottish whitefish vessels in the North Sea have fallen by half - the greatest reduction achieved in the EU.
Ian Allan:
You wouldn't expect the victim of a crime to serve the prison sentence and the perpetrator of that crime to walk the streets.Therefore, why is it acceptable to cut public services and let greedy bankers (who created the financial crisis in the first place)off with no more than a slap on the wrist?
Donald J. Macleod:
To Tavish Scott. Why should anyone vote for the Lib Dems as they have broken many of the promises made during the Westminster election by jumping into bed with the Tories? After this scenario how can anyone in Scotland trust what the Lib Dems state in their manifesto prior to the Holyrood election?
Donald J Macleod:
During the Westminster election the Labour Party stated they were going to build a number of nuclear power plants. In view of the crisis at the Japanese nuclear plant will the Scottish Labour Party now change this policy and state that no more nuclear power stations will be built in Scotland? Scotland is a small country and any hint of radiation leaks from any of our nuclear power plants would spell the end of our agricultural, fishing and tourist industries, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Lewis Macdonald, Energy Spokesperson replies: "No-one is proposing building any new nuclear power stations, although the SNP recently gave the nod to extending the life of nuclear in Scotland. Any application should be considered on its merits, in terms of safety, environmental impact, the local community and other planning considerations. At the moment some 30% of Scotland's energy comes from Torness and Hunterston.
The current stage of the development of the renewable industry means that if we turn off those stations now, there will be a gap that cannot currently be filled."
Jim Robertson:
We hear an awful lot about the West Lothian question, but what I like to call the North Angus question is never heard. The question is: Why, when Scotland votes anything but Tory (except for a Borders constituency and I think there must be something nasty in the water down there) do we have to suffer under a Tory government? When there is a Tory government in Westminster Scotland is effectively disenfranchised.
Malcolm Brown, Lochwinnoch:
Why are we are spending zillions on Trident when, we now discover, much cheaper Tomahawks, which are perfectly adequate to nuke anyone we could possibly want to nuke, can be launched from ordinary submarines?
Jackie Baillie, Labour's Candidate for Dumbartonshire, replies:
"Decisions about military capability need to be informed by our armed forces. Most MPs support multilateral nuclear disarmament, not unilateral, because in an uncertain world they are worried about giving up the deterrent at a time others are trying to gain nuclear weapons.
That said, Gordon Brown's government reduced the number of warheads and, with President Obama's initiatives, made progress towards international weapons treaties not seen for a generation or more."
Lawrence Marshall, ForthRight Alliance:
Can the problems of the existing Forth Road bridge be fixed? Shouldn't we wait just a few months to see if the cable drying now fully installed on the bridge has worked before signing a huge amount of public money away on an additional bridge?
Jess Grant:
A question for Labour. Ever since they were thrown out at the last election I have firmly believed that if they had taken the moral high ground and shown the courage to stand and be counted they would have been re-elected, in Scotland at least. Bankers and CEO's outrageous 'rewards' are plainly immoral and wrong. Scottish people's sense of fairness and justice has been betrayed by the mealy mouthings of those in a position to do something about it. Historically the Scots have always voted Labour, or rather Old Labour, because it championed the common man. The current incumbents appear to be still in thrall to the greed culture of the 1980s. Do they intend to continue on this path?
Catherine Mackinven, Kinlochiel:
Has anyone seriously challenged the oft repeated mantra that the Scottish economy benefits from tourism? What does it cost us in young people unable to afford housing in the highlands? In vast tracts of our lands being given over to holiday lets and B&Bs? In partial and inefficient public transport, geared to summer tourism? In council spending devoted to tourism to an extent where local people have to hang any appeal for anything they want or need on the tourism peg? Where jobs go to transient workers, not because locals are lazy, but conditions of pay and employment are so unstable and unreliable that locals cannot risk such work
Hugh McLean, Newton Mearns:
Subject: Parliament's Consultants. Why employ an expert, when you can mess it up yourself?
Also from Hugh McLean:
Surely the time has come to bring to an end the total dependency of the Scottish shipbuilding industry on defence contracts, which leads to millions of pounds being thrown out of the window on projects like aircraft carriers for which we have no aircraft. Would it not be much better to improve the marketing and win contracts to build cruise ships, ferries and any other maritime necessities rather than sitting with a begging bowl outside of an incompetent Ministry of Defence?
