It's wrong to blame the SNP for the Ferguson Marine mess

Those same unions claim that the yard is hampered in bidding for contracts by heavily subsidised foreign rivals. Bizarrely they then demand that even more funds be pumped into the already heavily subsidised Ferguson Marine “so that it can compete fairly”.

Then we have claims that Jim McColl has pumped “millions” into the yard. If that’s so then why did he try to avoid providing a £100 million refund guarantee? Why did he have to mortgage the yard’s assets – ie his investment – to provide that guarantee?

Opposition politicians have also added their bit. According to them there was nothing to stop a direct award for four vessels being given to the yard. They blamed legacy EU rules. Unfortunately the Internal Market Act which replaced those rules has the same constraints. Only this time it’s about preventing the favouring of a yard in one part of the UK at the expense of those in other parts.

The IMA was brought in by Boris Johnson at a time when he was rushing to rejoin the World Trade Organisation. But WTO rules also prohibit the favouring of domestic providers over foreign competitors in the award of public contracts. So to exclude foreign yards from bidding you'd have to leave the WTO.

Last but not least we have certain commentators who insist the SNP Government is solely responsible for any ferry procurement failures. However the Government was not a signatory to the contract and thus has no involvement in its execution. It provides the money as the principal funder and signs off any award accordingly. Thereafter Scottish Public Finance rules limit its role to the monitoring of costs. Ministers don’t check welds.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk.

Read more letters

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• Due to the saga of the two Glens, a lack of new orders and the current announcement of substantial job losses, the future of the Ferguson Marine shipyard is in doubt. If therefore we must accept that commercial shipbuilding on the Clyde is no longer viable, could further job losses be avoided by repurposing the yard and retraining its skilled workforce to manufacture different equipment, made from cut metal, for which a ready market exists?

Large shipping containers could be one suggestion, particularly as nowadays they are being used also in the construction industry to build offices, even homes. Alternatively, an item of increasingly sophisticated design and apparently in relatively short supply here is the military drone. As we are witnessing in Ukraine and Russia, in modern warfare there is an insatiable demand for drones so for our national security, should be not be stockpiling them on a just-in-case basis?

There must be other possibilities, so why not accept the inevitable and investigate repurposing radically the existing facility and workforce, taking advantage of its readily accessible location where materials can be shipped in and large-scale product shipped out easily via the Clyde?

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

Challenge for Radio Scotland

Brian Beacon raises valid points in his criticism of BBC Scotland broadly and Radio Scotland specifically ("What has BBC Scotland ever done for me? Not a lot, lately", The Herald, August 22).

There indeed seems to be what Mr Beacom calls "a real lack of explanation of intent, of vision". What is Radio Scotland for? If just aping commercial radio as a public broadcaster, why bother?

Getting rid of distinctive broadcasters who added a relevant Scottish dimension to output, such as Billy Sloan and Iain Anderson, was pure folly. Wide swathes of Scottish life, such as farming, jazz, rugby, fishing, hillwalking, cooking, literature and even Scottish dance music, receive scant attention. Meanwhile, many hours per week are devoted to football and banal discussion programmes that do little if anything to inform, educate or entertain as Lord Reith planned.

To remain relevant at all, Radio Scotland needs to do something commercial rivals and national BBC channels such as Radio 4 and Radio 3 do not.

Christopher Ruane, Lanark.

There are concerns over the water quality at Portobello beach (Image: Gordon Terris)

Lessons of a trendy teacher

Mark Smith ("One final lesson from a great Scottish school", The Herald, August 22) states that "pupils don’t usually go wild or misbehave for no reason, there’s usually something underlying the issue".

I was also at a great Scottish school, which was also selective. And as was also quoted in the article, a former headteacher had said that if you’re a good teacher, you could teach without using corporal punishment.

Indeed that was true as the teachers who couldn’t teach, couldn’t control the class in my experience. But then when we had a new teacher who was younger and trying to be trendy; he acted as if he was our friend which did not earn our respect, so he was just baited with glee by some.

I would suggest that there was no "issue". It was just illustrative of the fact that children without discipline or consequences will push boundaries. In the case of the "friendly" teacher it was to see how much bad behaviour they could get away with before they could break the teacher – just because they could.

I remember no one having any "meltdowns" from my schooling age five to age 17. No one was out of control. No doubt there were children with real issues but perhaps we had also much more resilience.

Surely the difference between behaviour 50 years ago and today is, as Mark Smith’s article suggests, that there are no consequences for bad behaviour and not that human nature has changed.

Irene Munro, Conon Bridge.

Swimmer or floater?

Your article concerning the water quality at Portobello beach ("‘I won’t let my dog swim at Portobello due to sewage,’ council hopeful reveals", The Herald, August 25) reminds me of the very old joke that you don't go swimming at Portobello, you just go through the motions.

Donald Kinnear, Rothesay.