I AGREE with Martin Redfern (Letters, January 16) that “disliking the Prime Minister du jour [does not justify] ending a 300-plus-year-old Union”, however, he carefully avoids that support for independence hasn’t changed much "pendant de nombreux jours".

At the referendum in 2014 when David Cameron was Prime Minister, Yes was supported by 44.7 per cent of those who voted. When he resigned in May 2016 opinion polling suggested that support stood at a comparable 46.6%, being approximately the same when Theresa May took up the post.

On her resignation and replacement by Boris Johnson, support had risen to 48.9%. During his premiership, support has been as low as 45.6%, though it has been as high as 57% in October 2020.

In other words, any connection between Boris Johnson being Prime Minster and support for independence is no more than the continuation of a trend, with variations around it, that has developed not just under Mr Johnson but successive Westminster prime ministers since at least 2014. Of course, whether this will remain so, only time will tell.

What is clear is that Mr Redfern will leave no stone unturned, or barrel unscraped in his never-ending loathing of the very idea of independence. Perhaps the reason is that despite the increasingly desperate attempts by Mr Redfern and his fellow travellers, the independence argument not only has increasingly deep foundations, but is increasing its support in parts of the community who would previously have voted No.

It is no wonder that they are worried, but they do themselves no favours by the kind of superficial, and easily disproved statistics that Mr Redfern used this week.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.


THE BUCK STOPS AT THE TOP

I READ last week's issue (January 16) and noted the big difference in the way that Iain Macwhirter and Barrie Cunning saw things. Mr Macwhirter ("We’ve not seen the end of PM Boris till the plus-size lady sings") seemed to mostly blame the civil service and Mr Cunning ("Boris Johnson knows his days are numbered") seemed to mostly blame Boris Johnson for the culture of Partygate.

I am apolitical in general, with no particular party affiliation, but it seems to me that Mr Cunning has the vast majority of public opinion on his side and Mr Macwhirter very little, however right he may be about the civil service in general.

The buck stops at the top, and usually the culture on any ship or in any organisation is dictated from the top. The captain.

To mix my metaphors the fish rots from the head, and that’s what is happening here with Westminster and Partygate. Rotten with hypocrisy and corruption.

It's high time we did something about it.

George Archibald, West Linton.


SHAME ON THE WESTMINSTER CHARLATANS

THE charlatans and dandies at Westminster have shredded the European freedom and citizenship of 60 million Britons so that a few billionaires could feast on the wreckage of the pound sterling; abandoned our allies among the Afghan people to the revenge of savage enemies; wish to push the resulting refugees back into the sea; have made Britain so global she can’t sell a crate of oysters further away than Dover, and stripped British business of willing help from European labourers, yet the public are dangerously annoyed as never yet because those chancers indulge themselves in a country which is under restrictions, with many sick, dying, or bereaved.

While the leisure behaviour of these great helmsmen is tactless and stupid, and while they have criminally risked their lives and their staff’s lives, none of that is anything like the disgrace of their programme of misrule.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland.


THE CASE AGAINST GREEN BELTS

I NOTE with interest your report on objections to the proposed development between Airdrie and Calderbank. Many objections to this and other projects in semi-rural areas springs from an understandable but mistaken view that so-called green belts are about nature conservation.

When they were first mooted in the 1940s there was scant interest in this and their widespread use has not stopped a huge reduction in the extent of natural meadows, woodland and hedgerows and in biodiversity due to modern farming. Indeed it is said that there is now more wildlife within towns than in parts of the countryside.

The role of green belts was and is to manage urban growth. The proper term is a "container". Instead of allowing most expansion on parts of the urban periphery this is pushed into outlying towns and villages, which greatly raises public costs and the amount of time and money spent on travel. House prices within cities are unaffordable for many, and villages become detached suburbs.

Another aim is to make infrastructure provision more economic by limiting the amount of land available for building in one period (for example,10 years). When most of this is used parts of the green belt are "released" for building. Extensions may be made on the outer edge. The London green belt is larger than ever but it has moved far further out.

The originator of the approach was a London architect who knew little about landscape or urban geography. He tried and failed to have it adopted in other countries, Scotland being an exception. Towns here have very different landscapes from each other so applying one spatial form to all never made sense. Yet that is what happened.

Many professional planners have limited understanding of landscape or urban dynamics and know little of approaches used abroad. I prepared plans in several countries but never used a green belt and am pleased that the Highland and Falkirk councils have rejected the idea. The latter has instead adopted a "greenspace plan".

In the 1960s Glasgow-born Ian McHarg, then professor of landscape and regional planning at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, wrote a book called Design with Nature. He and others devised an approach they called "ecological planning" and used this to formulate a strategy for the whole of New Jersey. I doubt many people here ever read the book or know anything of this approach to planning, yet it is what Central Scotland needs. Green belts belong to the age of steam engines and cannot deal with the complex issues of today.

Objectors to this project are right that access to "greenspace" is crucial for health but seemingly think that this does not apply to those who need homes. Where these should live is seemingly not their concern.

Future residents rarely participate in public consultations. The emphasis is always on the wishes of those who already live in the area and want to stop others also doing so. Just keeping people out of areas like this is not a fair and sensible approach to the problem.

To say that the area would be dominated by roads is ludicrous. Such would use a tiny fraction of the area, maybe one per cent of that taken up by parks, reserves and gardens

The idea that only a few people should be allowed to live in areas of high amenity is obnoxious. Do objectors not have children or grandchildren whom they wish to have living nearby and enjoying the amenities they so value?

John Munro, Glasgow.


WE NEED THE YOUNG TO TAKE ACTION

I WRITE in response to Otto Inglis (Letters, January 16), in which he states that our climate change policy is pointless while the Chinese, Indians and others massively increase their burning of fossil fuels.

This is the meaningless, irrelevant argument that I and fellow campaigners in Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and every other conservation organisation have had to fight against for 50 years. So, according to Mr Inglis, just because India, China, et al are not, according to him, reducing their global footprint we have to continue raping the planet in order to keep big business harvesting loadsa dosh? There are no big businesses on a dead planet. Look at the latest pictures of Mars; how many McDonald's do you see there? How many Amazons?

We have to listen to Greta’s generation, because for 40 years I have said to people “please don’t use plastic bags, please don’t destroy the insects that pollinate our food crops, please treat the sentient beings that give us our meat and milk more humanely, please don’t destroy the peat bogs and the forests that are protecting our existence. Pretty please”. Well now I have stopped saying please.

We need the younger generation to rise up and glue themselves to roads, bridges and the like. Just as we had the Suffragettes moving on from the pacifist methods of the Suffragists because the patriarchy refused to listen, we now have to use the methods of Extinction Rebellion, because people continue to refuse to listen.

Margaret Forbes, Kilmacolm.


BEWARE THE PENDING UPHEAVAL

WHILE we blither on about posh boys having a party, we are on the verge of a geopolitical upheaval that will alter the planet. My godson in Hong Kong confirms that China is back in charge and everything has changed. All those who protested have vanished. Taiwan next, from the sound of responsible news reports, and Russia will simply do what it wants as well.

Donald Trump might have presented a US figure that the Kremlin would have thought twice about, but not Joe Biden. And why we persist with the notion that Britain is a world force whose opinion on anything other than tennis players actually matters, is a mystery.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.