I SUPPOSE the simple answer to Rhona Godfrey's question, "Why should [Laurence Fox] hit back against feminism in such a spiteful way?" (Letters, October 3) is that he didn't. What Fox did hit back against was two women's dismissal, or at best, minimalisation, of the problem of male suicide. That he hit back in a spiteful way is uncontested, but the issue really is men.

Of the 507 construction suicides in England and Wales in 2021, all but four were male. Is it possible that any of these tragedies might have been prevented if the men had thought that their trade union would listen, rather than lecture them about the gender pay gap? The story so far has focused on Fox and Evans, but TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady on the BBC Politics Live discussion (September 25) that triggered the GB News row surely has questions to answer.

That said, Baroness O'Grady only has questions to answer because we know the figure for suicides in the construction industry in England and Wales. The same question cannot be asked of the STUC. From the Scottish Government's website, the Office for National Statistics reported in 2018 that the rate of suicide was higher in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. Just under three-quarters of all suicides in Scotland are male. Eighty-eight per cent of people who die by suicide in Scotland are of working age with two-thirds of these in employment at the time of their death. There’s every chance, as Steph Brawn in your sister paper, The National, observed, that this could be an issue in Scotland, but we have absolutely no idea because statistics are not currently published. What we do know however is that the number of women working in construction and engineering is on the increase.

Thirty-seven per cent of new entrants into the construction industry that came from higher education are women. We know the statistics for women going into the industry, but we don't know how many male construction workers are killing themselves. From this alone it is possible to conclude that the suicide rate of male construction workers in Scotland is not counted because the lives of male construction workers are not valued. That their lives simply don't matter.

Yet these are the very tradesmen praised by Kate Forbes this week. And whilst her personal praise is welcomed, every electrician, plumber and joiner knows that their unique skills and knowledge are not valued by the political and educational blob. Every school leaver who gains a construction apprenticeship knows that their success won't be celebrated in the way that Highers passers are. No apprentice who completes their time will get their name in the newspaper like new university graduates do. (I still remember the crestfallen look on my physics teacher's face when I told him that I had an electrical apprenticeship.)

Fox's comments might well be repellent, but he was absolutely right to call Evans out. His greater sin was to do so in a way that let the whole narrative shift from the women's failings to his.
Graeme Arnott, Stewarton.

Read more: It's not men against women: it's horrible people versus the rest of us

Wind farms are for the best
I MUST take to task your correspondent K Coltart (Letters, October 4).
First, it is not only rural areas which are having wind farms and/or pylons installed. Second, not everyone regards the former as blots on the landscape.

I feel that an ambition to reach net zero is laudable, and I certainly prefer the methods being implemented to those involving the burning of fossil fuels and the proliferation of nuclear.

I would argue that future generations will welcome our efforts: perhaps being aghast that they were not ambitious enough.
Elspeth Russell, Hamilton.

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• DAVID Bol's recent Unspun article ("UK Government risks failing to reap the benefits of net zero", The Herald, September 28)  pointed out that liquefied natural gas (LNG) was the dirtiest form of gas and imports of the product have soared in recent years, especially from the United States. However, there was no mention that this increase in imports in US shale gas is because it is a feedstock for the chemical industries based at Grangemouth; hence the LNG is not used as an energy source but is a requisite for producing chemical products as part of the Scottish export market.

This raises the question as to whether, as part of an SNP fossil fuel ban, the First Minister plans to halt such imports to Scotland with a massive impact on the job opportunities in the Forth Valley and tax revenues for Holyrood.
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas.

Council has better things to do
I NOTE the letter (September 30) from Cammy Day, leader of Edinburgh City Council, on the statue of Henry Dundas in Edinburgh's St Andrew Square. Apart from installing a plaque on the statue, what exactly does the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Implementation Group do? And how is this group relevant to the statutory duties of the city council?

Perhaps Councillor Day's time would be better spent on issues which really matter to the citizens of Edinburgh.
Graham Hill, Whiting Bay, Arran.

Was Witchell so awful?
I REFER to the fact that Nicholas Witchell, the BBC royal correspondent, is to stand down ("BBC man Witchell to retire after 50 years", The Herald. October 4). The King, when Prince of Wales, remarked that he could not bear him and that he was "so awful". The broadcaster provides hope for others who have been faced with derogatory remarks made in public (albeit inadvertently in this case) during their employment by those in senior positions.

Having a law degree and an impressive career in many different roles within the BBC, Nicholas Witchell was obviously no one’s patsy and was able to continue successfully in position in the face of the insulting comments of the then Prince. It would be interesting to have from the now-King a list of all those he defines as being awful . I wonder whether or not any Americans would be on it.
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

Dousing the anger
READING about the suspension of Fergus Ewing reminds me of Wendy Wood, many decades ago at an SNP disciplinary meeting at a time of internecine polemics within the party. She shouted that "they had expelled Wallace" and at that another member poured a jug of water over the chairman's head. 

It would appear the SNP nowadays has some considerable restraint as they do not, to my knowledge, pour water over each other's heads any more.
Robin Davidson, Newton Stewart.