SO our Prime Minister has decided that we should increase exploration in the North Sea to ensure oil and gas needs over the next couple of decades ("Rishi Sunak confirms new oil and gas licences for North Sea", heraldscotland, July 31). This is linked to investment in carbon capture technology.

This is a blatant attempt to garner votes for short-term electoral gain at the expense of long-term needs. Rishi Sunak is, presumably, an intelligent man, but instead of using his intelligence to find long-term solutions to the climate emergency he is using it to make excuses for what he knows must be a wrong-headed policy. Democracy has reached a new low in this country (the UK).

Surely Mr Sunak cannot be unable to see the obvious holes in the Tory Party policy? First, if you were facing an emergency which could have devastating effects, would you rely on proven technologies, such as electricity generation by wind, solar or nuclear, or would you rely on a totally unproven technology vis a vis carbon capture? No one knows if carbon capture is a viable solution to rising CO2 levels, unlike the other technologies mentioned. Even if it is, experience shows it normally takes years to go from small-scale prototypes to fully functioning large-scale facilities. We need solutions now, as we have seen recently from events all around the world that the effects of climate change are upon us already.

Next we will hear that the Government has no funds to invest significantly in supporting further renewable development. We have funds to subsidise oil companies, we always have funds for overseas wars and we have funds for the high-speed rail link between Birmingham and London, which even the Government’s own watchdog says is an unachievable objective. Lack of money is patently not an excuse.

And then we will hear that new oil and gas is needed to keep prices down. This is really the most wrong-headed of the excuses. The reason that renewable electricity is so expensive is simply because its price is linked to electricity produced from gas-fired power stations. Why doesn’t the Government do something about this link?

No, this is all about votes. Probably the most inadequate and incompetent government we have had in a generation, if not more, is trying to save its bacon with short-sighted policies designed to appeal to its voters. We can only hope that the general public can see through this nonsense and remove the Government at the next election. Whilst an alternative hope is independence, this will not ensure that the appalling "rest of the UK" Government stops producing life-threatening policies.

John Palfreyman, Coupar Angus.

Read more: It is Westminster that is acting outwith the bounds of democracy

Carbon capture does not work

I NOTE that the powers that be are cock-a-hoop about the new carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility being belatedly granted to Scotland. When the other two (in England) were awarded I felt relieved that Scotland had escaped such a project being undertaken here.

CCS has been declared a failed exercise by many research groups reporting on the internet. Thermodynamically it is a futile attempt to reverse entropy on this finite planet.

John M Caldwell, Bothwell.

Flynn has a short memory

AS a local MP, Steven Flynn did grudgingly manage to say something positive on today's Good Morning Scotland programme (July 31) re jobs and the carbon capture announcement. However, he could not help himself and did manage the two usual SNP gripes to indicate the SNP could have done better or differently ... "dragged out of the EU" and "devolved powers". Like many SNP Members of Parliament he forgets key facts.

First, if Yes had won the independence referendum Scotland would have been out of the EU earlier than we were and we would have no hope of getting back in as Scotland's debt is too high and we do not have a central bank. Secondly, we have lots of devolved powers, for example over the NHS, road building and ferries, and the SNP's handling of those issues would not give the population any confidence in its ability to deliver a carbon capture scheme.

Elizabeth Hands, Armadale.

The facts about heat pumps

YOUR front page report today ("Half of Scots support Harvie's plan to phase out gas boilers", The Herald, July 31) left me just a little surprised.

Were the 2026 respondents to the Survation survey on behalf of WWF Scotland told that heat pumps are powered by electricity which is currently the most expensive way to heat a home? Were they told that when running at full power in really cold weather they are at their least efficient and most expensive to run? Were they told that they are ugly and cumbersome and noisy enough to rattle your windows especially when installed in clusters in towns? Were they told that for most people the installation would require the fitting of extra if not total replacement of their radiators? Were they told where the £33 billion Mr Harvie estimates it would cost would be coming from?

Note that Scotland's total annual budget is about £50bn. Need I go on?

Robert Dickson, Galston.

• TODAY'S headline reminded me of the old saw "there are lies, damned lies and statistics". And to that you can add "surveys". I find it very hard to believe that a study of 2026 people can metamorphose into half of the Scottish public supporting a plan to phase out gas boilers.

It's a pity that the survey did not extend to seeking out existing users of heat pumps where received wisdom would suggest that 50% would happily throw them out and return to warm, quiet and reliable gas.

For reasons best known to the developers, Stirling is enjoying an amazing boom in new housing at present, and a couple of phone calls has established that they are all sold with gas-fired heating.

Andy Trombala, Stirling.

It's all about a quick buck

NEIL Mackay was spot on when, in a recent article, he referred to humanity's "suicidal short-termism" and its inability to take other than short-term views ("Will we be shrieking about eco-zealots when Scotland is under water?", The Herald, July 25).

Although Mr Mackay's remarks were concerned primarily with climate change, his point could be extended to many areas of social and economic life. Many problems, indeed crises in our society, stem from this mindset: health, social care, transport, education, housing, the environment. That CalMac for example finds itself with an inadequate and ageing ferry fleet is one symptom of this malaise. The serious implications for social care caused by bed blocking is another consequence.

This system does not however arise in a vacuum, it is an outcome of a rapacious capitalism dominated by speculation, hedge funds, private equity, the pursuit of a quick buck. As an economic system it is incapable of resolving the biggest issues facing humanity. This is in no way to underplay the vital role small and medium-sized enterprises must play in our economy. Big capital and financial speculation is the problem.

Of course, this system is most closely associated with the Tories. We have seen ample evidence, Covid contracts for example, of the truth of Nye Bevan's characterisation of the Tories as "organised spivery". Sadly, as a former Labour voter I am aware that this rapacity and unrestrained greed reached its highest point under New Labour. The vocabulary of toxic assets, sub-prime mortgages, negative equity, short selling, banks selling "products" and the daddy of them all, self-certified mortgages, came to the fore while New Labour was in charge of the Treasury.

As a UK election approaches I am not enthused or inclined to return to the Labour fold. I see no evidence that Sir Keir Starmer and his team have reflected on what went wrong between 1997 and 2010, far less having any analysis of the system which inevitably collapsed in 2008. They are too preoccupied with organising retreats from progressive policies.

Brian Harvey, Hamilton.

The failure of communism

JOHN Milne (Letters, July 31) is quite right in thinking that the current form of capitalism needs to be replaced. I suspect that Karl Marx must be burling in his grave when he sees how communism in Russia has failed to address the deficiencies of capitalism. The fact that we have computing power to facilitate making communism work must be even more galling for Marx.

Sandy Gemmill, Edinburgh.