Your exclusive report on Monday ("Electorate ‘gaslit’ by Miliband, say unions", The Herald, November 17) exposed what many in Scotland’s energy industry already know: Ed Miliband’s green jobs narrative is a mirage. GMB Scotland’s Louise Gilmour is right to accuse the Government of “gaslighting” voters. For years ministers have promised a just transition while contracts, investment and manufacturing work are handed overseas. Aberdeen is told not to believe the evidence of its own eyes as oil and gas are run down without replacement jobs materialising.
These claims echo the SNP’s own grandiose rhetoric. Mr Miliband’s promises mirror Alex Salmond's and Nicola Sturgeon’s fantasy of Scotland becoming the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. The truth is simple: we cannot be a renewables superpower when almost every critical component – from turbines to battery parks dependent on rare-earth materials – is sourced from China and manufactured abroad. It is a double whammy: deindustrialisation at home and the highest industrial and home energy costs in the developed world.
Sir Dieter Helm has already warned that Britain now leads Europe in deindustrialisation. The evidence is everywhere: Grangemouth shut, Petrofac on the brink, and jobs disappearing from the Port of Aberdeen as North Sea activity collapses. Meanwhile, AR7 delivered no viable support for a single Scottish offshore wind project for the third year in a row. Yet ministers still insist a green jobs boom is coming.
Mr Miliband’s folly is the pretence of a “just transition”. There is nothing just about shutting down Scottish and UK industries before replacement jobs exist; nothing just about exporting work to China while communities here are harmed; nothing just about soaring bills and shrinking opportunities. It is a transition in name only – and a complete betrayal.
Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.
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• You are to be congratulated for your article detailing the massive hit to the Scottish economy from the green transition. However, although the AR7 auction round received a mention, there was no detail provided over the make-up of the unit cost of electricity – currently about 25.6p/unit.
There are five principal items to the unit cost, namely the strike price, the network charges to transfer the energy from generator to the consumer, VAT, green levies and service costs (wages, tax, water rates etc).
The current strike price (that is, the minimum generating price) is £73 per MWhour) which is equivalent to a unit cost of 7.3p/unit, meaning the cost of the other four items is about 18.3p.
However, in your article there was no mention of the fact that the strike price for the output of floating wind generators will be £271 per MWhour, resulting in a unit price of electricity of 45.4p/unit – almost double the current cost.
In addition, there was no reference to the fact that, when the wind does not blow, there is no output from a wind farm – a fact that is ignored by the SNP. For example, at the start of October 50% of the demand for electricity in Scotland was met by the nuclear plant at Torness, 40% from the gas plant in the north-east of Scotland, yet John Swinney has never sent a letter of appreciation to the staff at either location thanking them for halting a repeat of the Spanish black-outs in the spring of 2025.
Surely it is time for Holyrood to outline a plan to keep the lights on when the wind fails to blow.
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas.
Save our music service
With horror I read the consultation document put forward by Dumfries and Galloway Council as it seeks to slice money from its outgoings in order to balance the books. At the very top of the list was the proposal to completely cut the young people's music service. No such act of cultural vandalism should be countenanced by the people of Dumfries and Galloway (D&G).
Although I live in D&G, I work internationally in the classical music industry as a singer, and I perform at venues in cities such as New York, Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin, as well as in the UK. My start in music included taking council-funded simple violin and trumpet lessons in the store-room of my primary school hall. Although the economic situation was poor at the time, the councillors understood the value of funded music for children, and I was a beneficiary.
Now, with my own children in the D&G educational system, I know from experience that its music service is made up of dedicated people who not only have a passion for the music they teach but also for the great benefits that accrue to the children they tutor. They have worked hard to bring the music service back to a healthy state after a long period of decline. It would be a tragedy if it were to be destroyed now. What is further to this madness is the fact that the council receives £305K per year from the Scottish Government to pay for instrumental lessons. If the proposal to scrap the music service goes ahead, a possible saving of £300-550K over three years would be eclipsed by the loss of a certain £915K over the same three years.
My appeal to the councillors of Dumfries and Galloway is to refuse to cut the schools music service. Instead, the aim should be to expand it. The benefits of making music are now so well-known and go far beyond the cultural aspect of music itself to the building up of school communities, the improvement in children's academic achievement, the inclusion and encouragement of quieter and less confident children and a guard against poor mental health as children find an outlet for their creativity and emotion. The music service in fact pulls more than its own weight in the benefit it gives to the local area and to the costs that are subsequently unspent by the council. If we cease to teach and train musicians, who will play for our ceilidhs, weddings, funerals, civic services, pop concerts, film soundtracks, Edinburgh Tattoo? If this proposal goes ahead, it will be nobody from Dumfries and Galloway.
Joshua Ellicott, near Dumfries.
Scottish News? Heard it already
Why does the BBC 6.30pm Scottish News regurgitate articles which have been featured on the national news? On Monday night's news (November 17), the first nine minutes were dedicated to the announcement re asylum seekers, as featured in the national news. This regularly is the case.
Derek B Petrie, Milngavie.
What gambling ads should say
I remember the first advert on STV, for SR toothpaste. It was novel and quite innocuous. Now we are constantly exposed to subliminal pressure to buy, subscribe, and accept what is presented as fact regarding the presumed quality and efficacy of any product or service. This is a particularly offensive presentation when it comes from purveyors of online betting who should declare "We will take most of your money: do not believe that you will actually win".
Stewart MacPherson, Kilsyth.
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