IT is understandable that Inverclyde Council leader Stephen McCabe would wish to protect jobs in Inverclyde with regard to the staff at Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow ("Council chief seeks pledge on shipyard future from Sturgeon", The Herald, July 24). It is not understandable or reasonable that yet again the public be asked to provide an open cheque in order that "arrangements can be put in place to make a direct award to Ferguson Marine to build the next phase of ferry vessels and help secure jobs at the yard". In other words, no competitive tendering, just give us the money.

All this when the final bill for the two ferries will be north of £200 million, delivery years late and still no date for completion. As might have been said of President Nixon, would you buy a ship from Ferguson Marine?

All this was predicted almost two years ago. Mr McCabe is flying in the face of reality. Are we to go yet again through the sad history of failed political dogma when Prestwick was bought for a pound to save jobs, or the other financial disaster of BiFab, for example?

Scottish commercial history is littered with examples of trade practices that have been overrun by time, and millions of pounds poured into projects deemed at the time to be vital to jobs and the economy, only to see them scuppered by more modern methods of manufacture or even worse, the collapse of an entire market, as in the demise of King Coal.

Instead of still trying to prop up the inevitable loss of jobs, let’s have the political leadership to change course and say "no more” to trying to save a failing yard as it slowly sinks under a financial load that inevitably ends the venture, and a big “Yes” to have the political courage to be seen to both invest and ring-fence the unspent millions that would have gone into the yard and put it into retraining and creating jobs that have a future for the workforce of Inverclyde and Scotland.

Surely we have not completely lost the entrepreneurial spirit that we have bragged about in years gone by?

Holyrood it seems has lost its way, its initiative, and has nothing to suggest. Para Handy’s parrot summed it all up perfectly as he was slung overboard: “Och well, I have no one to blame but myself.”

Robin Johnston, Newton Mearns.

NUCLEAR HAS TO BE THE WAY FORWARD

RE the letters from Celia Hobbs and Geoff Moore (July 26), I don’t have comforting news for them. The resolution of wind power’s fundamental weakness, its intermittency, will never be resolved. Yes, storage solutions and hydrogen production may be a partial solution, but the financial, material, environmental and real estate costs will be so huge that, as a complete solution, they would be utterly unaffordable. Furthermore, when the subsidies and constraint payments are withdrawn investment in wind energy will cease.

The future is even more concerning. As time moves on and the generation capacity factor (percentage of useful output to installed capacity) falls through wearing out of the structures and components, the operating costs will exceed income. Ownership will become a burden. Who will pay to remove the rusting legacy and restore the damaged peatland and landscapes? Yes, you have guessed correctly, the taxpayer. Some of it will be abandoned as a lasting monument to human folly.

To safeguard our planet elimination of anthropogenic CO2 is essential. The only viable solution is nuclear and our future depends on it. The Scottish Government’s irrational refusal to consider nuclear is a clear message that, despite the claim, it is currently not fit to safeguard Scotland’s future. What may surprise readers, although well understood by electricity power system professionals, is that nuclear energy is cheaper than wind and the cost advantage is set to increase as new, inherently stable nuclear power stations come on stream all over the world.

Norman McNab, Killearn.

STOP POLLUTING PLANET WITH MASKS

I WAS interested in Joanna Blythman's column on the subject of disposable masks ("Single-use masks are a human and environmental disaster. Tax them", The Herald, July 24). I have been campaigning against disposable products, of all kinds, since 1981 to no avail. It's always somebody else's place to do it, only nobody else ever does. I hope somebody points it out to Greta Thunberg, if she is indeed wearing a disposable mask.

I'm sick and tired of nobody showing an interest in the garbage that gets into our food, via disposables of all kinds. Listen to Ms Blythman and stop polluting the planet.

Margaret Forbes, Kilmacolm.

I'D GET A JAG FOR THE JIGGIN'

AS a veteran of 1950s “the jiggin” and now a dancing dinosaur my bucket list does not include fraternising in crowed hotspots or nightclubs, but I am sure that in our youth my generation would not have compromised our opporchancity for romance if a requirement for socialising was two wee jags ("Vaccine passport talk signals threat posed by low uptake", The Herald, July 24).

We would have been queuing up for them.

R Russell Smith, Largs.

MADNESS GOES BACK A LONG WAY

IT surprises me that it took Alan Simpson so long to realise that "the world appears to have gone stark raving bonkers" ("We must end this Covid madness at all costs", The Herald, July 22.) Some say that the rot set in with the demise of the big white fiver, but I'm certain that Browning would never have said God's in his heaven, all's right with the world had he lived to see Biffo the Bear replace Big Eggo on the front page of the Beano.

Robin Dow, Helensburgh.