Ed Miliband’s rejection of zonal pricing ("UK retains national electricity price, scrapping zonal plan", heraldscotland, July 10) was a blow to those living in the energy industrial nightmare in rural Scotland. The Scottish Government should be up in arms but is muted in its response. Why?
This is yet more evidence, if we needed it, that the SNP-led administration is backing Big Energy over its own citizens. Independent advice has shown that billions could be saved from energy bills if zonal pricing was applied, leading to a fairer system overall. It would also mean the massive infrastructure rollout would not be necessary as building generation near the point of use would be preferred.
The problem the Scottish Government had was to back much lower energy bills for Scottish consumers or keep its pals in Big Energy happy. It has made the wrong choice.
Zonal pricing would make Scotland a less interesting place to build yet more energy developments. It is debatable if we need any more and an independent cost benefit analysis is something rural communities have been crying out for.
The Scottish Government is always keen to blame Westminster for what is wrong in Scotland but the over-deployment of energy for export developments and the industrialisation of our iconic landscapes is squarely at its door. Instead of protecting the people who voted it in to do so it is rolling over and allowing Ed Miliband to change the planning system to suit the developer even more, something the SNP has lobbied, on behalf of Big Energy, the UK Government to do.
There seems to be a vacuum at Holyrood. It is in complete misstep with the rural electorate. It is content to mirror Ed Miliband’s expensive zealotry as it so clearly matches its own. History won’t be kind to any of them and next year’s elections may well be their undoing as rural constituents have seen nothing from the governing party that gives them confidence that they will ever be listened to or have their needs put first.
Lyndsey Ward, Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly.
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Indy will bring positive change
It is perhaps no surprise that someone apparently supporting Reform UK fails to acknowledge what all the established UK political parties now accept: that Britain is broken.
This is a result of a certain snake oil salesman who cheerfully promoted Brexit being allowed by the mainstream media to walk away from every opportunity to defend the economic and social consequences of Brexit while still attempting to blame the failures of a declining empire on those fleeing the consequences of past rampant imperialism. What was a surprise though was that Conrad Ritchie (Letters, July 10) did not seek to blame the Scottish Government for Britain’s overall demise as he even blamed the Scottish Government for “poor infrastructure” when not only Scotland but the North of England has suffered from the huge imbalance of UK Government infrastructure spending which has been strongly focused on the South-east of England.
Mr Ritchie stated that “the independence ship has sailed”, which may come as another surprise to many who know that the independence ship has yet to be launched. When it is finally launched there will be genuine change which will benefit the people of Scotland, democratically, economically and socially, as well as benefit people across these islands through more responsive governance.
Stan Grodynski, Longniddry.
We can't thrive in the Union
Perhaps Brian Wilson ("Why we need to support our home industries in Scotland", The Herald, June 10) could back up his claim that independence supporters seek "the low business taxes of Ireland with the high welfare spending of Norway", because it looks like an invention to me? I do agree on using our funding to protecting indigenous industry where we can, allowing space to grow and thrive on its own.
I am of the generation which watched the 1970/80s talking head shows on BBC Scotland, where the Tories/Labour/STUC/SCBI guests would all agree on the take-over of a Scottish company: inevitably these “branches” were closed with a year or so and their assets transferred out of Scotland. We saw it with the steel industry, where the Scottish plants were closed with minimum fuss (George Younger made more noise than Labour).
I agree again that we should have a far bigger share of the renewables industrial base, but without serious borrowing powers we cannot compete with our big neighbour to the south: Alex Salmond was keen to attract wind turbine manufacturing to Scotland but the DTI had far more heft in the shape of substantial incentives and grants (Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson) to attract renewables industry to set up in East England.
The same is happening right now with carbon capture and storage with Scotland again sidelined. Scotland simply cannot thrive within an exploitative Union unless it has the normal powers invested in an autonomous national entity to promote industrial policy (as with the previous Department of Trade and Industry in England). Scotland is surrounded by small prosperous countries, none of whom have their lunch money stolen by a bigger boy.
GR Weir, Ochiltree.
What Trump should say
I listened to the Radio Scotland phone-in today (July 10) about Donald Trump's proposed visit to his golf courses in Aberdeenshire. Most of the first 20 minutes was devoted to Ross Greer's hysterical rants. If his party colleagues and supporters aren't ashamed of him they should be and they should reflect on just how much freedom of speech there is in this country when a man whose party got a grand total of 34,000 constituency votes in the last Scottish election gets so much airtime.
I hope when President Trump comes to Scotland he points to the massive offshore wind farm a few miles out that, when I looked last night, was standing idle, and tells the world's media about the SNP, Greens and Labour's crazy wrecking of the oil and gas industry, and the sinister woke and gender policies that the Greens promulgate.
And I hope that he poses a rhetorical question of Mr Greer: whether he, as an Israel hater and supporter of Palestine, would be as apoplectic if the UK Government hosted a visit by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.
Don't subsidise large families
Catriona C Clark (Letters, July 10) wants to lift the two-child cap and introduce a UK-wide child payment. Too many British men and men of other nationalities treat their women as baby machines. Parents having more children than they can afford are the ones who are responsible for child poverty.
Scotland's Finance Secretary Shona Robison has claimed that lifting the two-child cap would only cost £100 million a year but the Scottish Fiscal Commission said it would be £150 million for 2026-27 rising to £200m in 2029-30. The Institute for Fiscal Studies stated it could eventually cost £300m a year. The Scottish Government has never been great with figures.
Child benefit payments are available from the birth of the child until they reach 16 years of age or 19 years of age if the young person stays in approved education or training. Why should Scottish taxpayers be forced to subsidise people for 16/19 years who have large families?
Clark Cross, Linlithgow.
Palestine should be reconstituted
The state of Israel exists on land stolen from the Palestinians and illegally bequeathed by the United Nations. Murder, terror and ethnic cleansing by paramilitary squads from mainly central Europe paved the way for carpetbaggers from around the world to steal the property and land of the indigenous people.
Since 1948 the apartheid state of Israel has had no moral or legal right to exist. It has affirmed its false sovereignty through repression, discrimination, murder, torture, invasion and latterly by the relentless extermination of a native population. This has been achieved in no small part by the vast pro-Israel US lobby and warped, mainly European, governments and political parties. Political parties in the West who rightly and proudly advanced their liberal and progressive credentials are now in the position of supporting and cheerleading for a state responsible for unspeakable crimes against humanity.
The Israeli state has not been slow to buy western politicians. Friends of Israel groups and parliamentary organisations set up years ago regularly invite western politicians to Israel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) supported 361 pro-Israel Democratic and Republican candidates in 2024 through more than $53million in direct "support".
Support for this synthetic, corrupt and morally empty state has to cease. The United Nations must correct the gross error it made 80 years ago. Palestine should be reconstituted as a single non-religious state that welcomes all religions, whether they be Jews, Christians, Muslims or indeed atheists. If not, then the state of Israel will continue with its expulsion of the Palestinian people from their own land; expulsion casually interspersed with mass casualty events, as the BBC likes to describe the organised murders carried out by the IDF and its supporters.
Don Ferguson, Kirkintilloch.
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