This Christmas the First Minister has chosen to send his greetings with an image of an unspoilt Highland landscape – a scene of peace and natural wonder ("Swinney’s festive appeal to ‘get out in nature’", The Herald, December 21). The irony is stark. While he uses the beauty of Scotland’s hills for seasonal wishes, his government presides over policies that threaten to industrialise those very landscapes with pylons, battery storage, substations and wind turbines.
Mr Swinney waxes lyrical about our “uniquely beautiful natural environment” and encourages us to get out into it for “our physical and mental well-being”.
It certainly is a gift from nature – yet the presents his government delivers to rural communities are a tsunami of Big Energy industrial junk and broken promises. The mental suffering among those forced to live beside the concrete-and-steel roadshow he champions cannot be dismissed, especially when support services for mental health are virtually non-existent. These communities have been abandoned and long forgotten by central government.
The Highlands are not just a backdrop for greeting cards – they are living communities whose hopes and futures are being stolen by the administration he leads.
If the First Minister truly valued the Highland landscape, he wouldn’t be handing it over to developers all tied up with a bow to colonise for profit.
To celebrate the Highlands in a Christmas card while industrialising them in policy is pure hypocrisy wrapped in seasonal paper – and then dumped beside one of the millions of hacked-down trees Big Energy has felled.
The Highlands don’t need festive platitudes – they need protection. And until this government provides it, no Christmas greeting can hide the damage he has done.
Lyndsey Ward, Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly.
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Shameful hounding of Duncan-Glancy
At this time of year we remember Christ coming into the world to bring a message of hope, forgiveness and redemption.
I have been hugely concerned in recent weeks to read of the political hounding of Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP ("Labour MSP to quit Holyrood", The Herald, December 20) over her continued friendship with a convicted paedophile – a friendship which began in their respective childhoods.
I obviously don't know – nor do I want to know – all of the detail of their friendship. But I do know that friends stick by each other in tough times.
Now, that's in no way to condone vile behaviour, nor to leave such behaviour unchallenged or unpunished. But it is to recognise the glimmer of humanity in all of us. Ostracism ain't true friendship.
That politicians of all stripes at Holyrood have seen such a continuing friendship as a weakness to be exploited for partisan and self-serving ends is beyond depressing.
They seek to present and to represent a modern, progressive Scotland. I see in this condemnation and removal of Ms Duncan-Glancy rather a return to medieval judgmentalism. A political auto-da-fé.
So, having succeeded in hounding Ms Duncan-Glancy out of parliament, I hope none of those politicians who have so roundly condemned her dare to sing even one word of any Christmas carol this week. For, if they do so, they will show a level of hypocrisy which even cynical me never thought they could stoop to.
Lawrence Marshall, Edinburgh.
Two types of migrants
The chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission warns against what she calls the “demonisation of migrants" without explaining precisely what she is warning against by using that term (“New equalities chair warns over the ‘demonisation' of migrants", The Herald, December 22). Are we not to be allowed to question who they are, why they chose to come here, the route by which they chose to arrive, or how they behave when they are here?
Should she not distinguish between the two quite distinct categories of migrants, those documented individuals arriving by way of a recognised lawful route and those undocumented individuals who choose to pay to be trafficked here to break into the UK by unlawful routes, mainly by the small boats? Why should the latter not be treated differently and more critically than the former and why should that be considered “demonisation" rather than border control to try to protect our national security?
As to leaving the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to facilitate deporting those whose claims to stay have been rejected by our established due process, I have an interest to declare as one of my daughters works there in Strasbourg. Nevertheless, should we ever leave it there is no suggestion that we would abandon the practice of recognising human rights. However, we would be free of any arguably questionable ECHR interpretations of those rights, and be able to rely on our own understanding of them, just as are so many other countries, the clue being in the "E" in its title. Have we abandoned all thoughts of being, again, masters of our own destiny?
Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.
The Ferguson albatross
The further depressing news regarding the possible fate of Ferguson Marine ("Shipyard’s ‘uncertain future’ as losses soar", The Herald, December 20) no longer has the news value it once had, a few years ago, when it was first announced by the then First Minister that the yard had been awarded the contract to build the two replacement ferries.
Since then there has been a constant stream of bad news: change of ownership, a constant drip of the loss of senior personnel, and a persistent request for more and more tax pounds for upgrading its equipment, in order to compete, according to the present CEO. It ranks among the worst commercial/political decisions the SNP has made in its time in office. Its house flag should now be that of an albatross, with the worst yet to come, for as sure as eggs are eggs, the writing is on the gates of the yard.
The more depressing aspect of the whole sorry debacle is the loss of jobs further down a shortening timeline and the fact that there will never be an inquest as to who should carry the lorry-load of bad political and commercial decisions. Perhaps the entire debacle should be the subject of a study by a renowned business school such as Stanford or Harvard illustrating how bad decisions for purely political gains can lead to the destruction of a once-successful company.
Robin Johnston, Newton Mearns.
A different train of thought
The Scottish Government, with the SNP brand highlighted, is widely and regularly pilloried in the mainstream print and broadcast media over delayed introduction of new ferries for island routes. Keir Starmer manages to pinpoint this issue whenever he is questioned on any matter related to Scotland. In stark contrast, new train fleets for English routes are frequently years late in entering service. This information is fully disclosed and discussed in rail industry trade publications but is rarely mentioned in mainstream media, whereas any news that can be weaponised to undermine the case for Scottish independence is gleefully exploited.
A prime example of this blinkered reporting is the range of bi-mode (electric/diesel) high-speed trains introduced on long-distance routes over the last few years. Many of these are now out of service undergoing remedial modification or in service with reduced capability causing cancellations or late running. This is due to unsatisfactory generator units employed when operating in diesel mode on lines not equipped with overhead wires. The victims of this situation are not as easily identified compared to Scottish island communities, but the burden imposed on taxpayers and the economy is many times greater.
Willie Maclean, Milngavie.
Card trick
High postal costs and messaging apps, contributing to fewer Christmas cards, have good points.
To date, we have only three unidentified Johns and two unidentified Joans.
David Miller, Milngavie.
