Your article on the convoy of military vehicles bringing nuclear warheads to the Trident base several times a year makes chilling reading (How a nuclear bomb convoy crash could wipe out Glasgow, News, September 25). These heavily-guarded secret convoys pass close to Glasgow en route to Stirling, and then go through several small towns and villages on their roundabout route to Coulport on Gare Loch, where the warheads are stored in heavily-guarded underground caverns.
Even if the convoys took the more direct route along the M8 and over the Erskine Bridge to join the A82, they would still pass through parts of Glasgow, and within a few yards of our brand new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Glasgow International Airport.
It is nonsense that such military weapons are carried by road so close to a major city and other centres of population, under the cloak of darkness.
Just imagine the storm of protest if they were taken along the M4 and round the north section of the M25, within touching distance of thousands of Londoners. But of course the powers that be at the MOD and Whitehall would never dream of choosing such a route, whereas Glasgow is 400 miles away so presumably doesn’t matter.
Until we finally get rid of Trident at Faslane, why can’t these dangerous cargoes be taken the short distance from Berkshire to one of the naval ports on the south coast and loaded on to a naval supply vessel? This could then sail direct to Coulport, well away from all centres of population. Surely that would be a much more sensible arrangement than driving them hundreds of miles along public roads and through populated areas?
Iain AD Mann Glasgow
"The First Minister realises that on the big issues the case for leaving the UK has been weakened," writes Keith Howell, focusing on our supposed £15m fiscal deficit (A trascendental conundrum, Letters. September 25).
Last weekend's Sunday Herald's varied and informed articles might suggest that, on moral grounds alone, the case for independence is irrefutable (How a nuclear bomb convoy crash would wipe out Glasgow, UK Government's 'no civilians killed in Syria airstrikes' claim rubbished by campaigners, Secret documents reveal UK 'complicity in US drone wards and US fracking firm supplying gas to Scotland 'trashed environment', all News, September 25).
Down in Westminster, the Tories worry about a lack of English grammar schools, give the OK to Hinkley Point C nuclear plant and will allow fracking licences in the same area. Am I missing something?
Iain R Thomson
Cannich
Keith Howell’s letter accuses the First Minister of introducing a new word, “transcend”, into the SNP lexicon (A transcendental conundrum, Letters, September 25).
He inplies that she is trying to use “new” words to confuse voters and cites opinion polls to attack independence. He refers to a blip for independence after the first Brexit announcement, then the polls going back to normal, which effectively means that in his view, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.
Mr Howell should know that Brexit has not happened yet because our Tory Government does not know what to do about it, and anyone with any political nous is flabbergasted as we hear meaningless phrases needing to be defined by the same government: “single market”, “free movement of people”, “hard border” “nuclear deterrent” “UN Security Council”. What does it all mean?
The SNP has never claimed to have all the answers, but Nicola Sturgeon is absolutely correct to say that independence transcends everything else; without the powers of independence we will continue to be mismanaged by England, currently in the grip of a hard-right Tory cabal who think austerity is right and proper, but just not for bankers.
He comments that last time around, overblown projections on oil underpinned the economic case for Scotland but he may not like to be reminded that these predictions were more modest than most others, including the Treasury's.
Independence will transform Scotland, and this does transcend all else.
Jim Lynch
Edinburgh
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