THE SNP Government and Nicola Sturgeon are rightly being castigated for signing a memorandum of understanding' with a giant Chinese construction firm which has been accused of unethical business practices (“Bribe link to £10bn China deal firm”, The Herald, April 5). We need to send a message to the world that we will not, tacitly or otherwise, have any truck with those who have a less than exemplary record in the pursuit of profit .

So it's farewell to BAE Systems due to their implication in bribery with the Saudis, goodbye to Starbucks and Amazon for their questionable tax practices, so long to HSBC after its $1.9 billion fine for money laundering on behalf of drug lords and rogue states, auf wiedersehen to VW after its emissions scandal, cheerio to Apple for its association with slave labour in manufacturing its products , 'bye to Monsanto (creators of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War ) and its GM crops, and let's not get started on the tobacco companies. And what about all those properties owned by those whiter-than-white Russian oligarchs which are sustaining the London property bubble?

There are precious few large companies, not to mention governments, that have a clean pair of hands when closely scrutinised so let us not get too agitated over another ''deal with the devil'' of big business. It is the world in which we live.

And these ethical niceties won't matter too much in the near future when we as a country are owned lock, stock and nuclear power station by the Chinese.

James Mills

29 Armour Square, Johnstone.

ONE has to wonder how this an agreement could be reached with a company which has apparently been blacklisted by the Norwegians for rampant corruption. Either Nicola Sturgeon was unaware of the situation due to lack of experience in dealing in such matters or that proper due diligence was given short shrift by the Scottish Government in its eagerness to show they could secure a big deal to kick-start Scotland's lagging onshore economy.

The fact that the deal was signed at Bute House in secret and only discovered after foreign media reports suggests to me that it was more an act of desperation by the SNP Government to deflect attention away from the fiscal black hole (due to the collapse of the oil prices) which has made a nonsense of their economic case for independence.

Act in haste, repent at leisure springs to mind.

Ian Lakin,

Pinelands, Murtle Den Road, Milltimber, Aberdeen.

WHAT a depressing read your front page (April 5) was at the end of another tax year for those of us not rich enough not to pay it.

Scotland’s brave new nation’s foundations are embedded in crooked Chinese steel; our Prime Minister’s considerable inherited wealth appears to be enhanced by tax avoidance; workers in their twenties and thirties are going to work longer and be worse off after being promised more under pension “reforms” (“Millions worse off under pension reforms”) and, last but not least, £10million has been found in the biscuit tin to give our leading lady’s palace a wee decant before the B&B season starts (“£10m set top boost tourism at Palace”).

At this rate the Chilcot Inquiry will probably be published, rubbished and buried before the meek get the chance to inherit the remains of this sub-prime earth.

Duncan Graham,

34 Randolph Road, Stirling.