Letters: Delusional claims over slavery reparations

His eye-rolling about ‘what about the Vikings and the Romans, since these states don’t exist’ does not get away from the reality that the descendants of these powers occupy known geographical states today - it can’t be too hard to join the dots and establish blame. Easier still is to identify many of the other nations descended from historical empires involved in taking slaves (spoiler alert: virtually every dominant power through history and still going on today – evil stuff, yes, but not unique to Britain).

If Banner is not prepared to pursue these cases, why go after the UK solely? Sounds like academic virtue-signalling to me (see previous ‘not going to happen’).

If he really wants to chase someone down, why not go after the people who made money out of it: the merchants. It's easy to find them; they got generous compensation in 1835-43 for loss of their ‘property’ on slavery being made illegal in UK territories. The list of complicit includes the royal family (the Royal African Company, with James II as governor). That makes more sense than penalising the general population today, who did not benefit from slavery and whose forebears could – and some did – end up as slaves themselves if they fell foul of Hanoverian royalty and authorities.

Why do we not hear of Banner taking a reparations bill to the Arabs, the Chinese, the Turks, the African tribes that enslaved other Africans, and the Barbary States, who were still taking slaves in the 1820s? When they, and the descendants of Rome and the Viking homelands, pay up; then we will have no excuse not to.

Roddie McKenzie, Dundee.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read more: Scotland's bill for slave trade 'tens of billions' says Michael Banner

Church of Scotland admits slavery links and recommends apology

Scotland's slave trade profits are still helping institutions

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We should not pay a single penny
SO, a Cambridge University academic wants me and every other Scot to pay compensation for slavery which had been abolished in the British Empire before our great-grandparents were born, to people in the Caribbean whose great-grandparents were born free.

There is a name for this wicked racist proposition. It is called kin guilt, or as the Nazis called it, Sippenhaft.  Germany paid reparations after 1945 because the majority of Germans then living had been complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich.

Those who demand we pay compensation for slavery never give any credit for the colossal achievements of British people. They are strangely silent about the Industrial Revolution led by Britain, or our islands’ leading contribution to the scientific revolution. Similarly, they have nothing to say about the suppression of widow-burning, or suttee, in India. They never mention the endless stream of Scottish inventions including the telephone and the television.

While never forgetting the crimes of former centuries, we should take pride in the impressive achievements of Scottish and English people, and not pay a penny.
Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife.

Scots expect better from Swinney
IT is totally unacceptable for SNP leader John Swinney to reject the outcome of the standards committee into the £11,000 false expense claims made by Michael Matheson while on holiday just on the basis that he is a good friend.

The Scottish electorate expect better from an SNP leader in making a clean start in restoring confidence in the party. 

Michael Matheson was caught out telling lie after lie to try to cover up the false claim, only to eventually admit that the claim was false.

With the police inquiry continuing into SNP affairs and potential charges still pending, the SNP need to be seen to act decisively and honestly in handling false expense claims by their ministers.   
Dennis Forbes Grattan, Bucksburn, Aberdeen.

The SNP’s endless lack of probity
IS there a single elected member of the SNP, in Holyrood or Westminster, who will admit blame or guilt and quietly depart the scene with a dignified apology? Michael Matheson is only the latest in a long line of nationalist MSPs and MPs who appear to think the rules do not apply to them in the way they apply to everyone else.

I cannot recall, in all their years in office, a single nationalist MSP or MP who has resigned when they should have. Not one. Probity was for others.

The SNP seems to think that they are the chosen ones and no blame can ever be admitted or regretted. It does not seem to matter if it is financial matters, or unwanted sexual advances, or perhaps a flagrant breach of Covid rules – and in that particular case the MP involved clung on like grim death until she could do it no longer and her fingers were prised loose.

Consider the almost immediate and principled departures of Wendy Alexander, Henry McLeish and others, for matters most would think infinitesimally small in comparison with those of the SNP – you have to sigh for those past days of dignity.
For those politicians, regard for their own self-respect as well as their party and country’s image, and Holyrood itself, came first. There is one silver lining. This, of course, is another reason for the severe electoral disaster that seems certain and will very shortly engulf the SNP.
Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

Where do all the extra turbines go?
IN his rather long and, some critics may say, rather rambling letter, Iain McIntyre (‘We must not downplay the importance of renewables or neglect the net-zero fight’, May 19) makes some rather dubious claims.

He claims that 50% of the UK’s electricity is from renewable sources. Well, the website grid.iamkate.com shows a different picture.

For the last 12 months, solar provided 4.9% of UK electricity, wind 31.7% and hydro 1.4%, a total of 37%.

It therefore seems both irrelevant and dubious for Iain McIntyre to say that in December 2020, renewables provided 41.4% of our electricity. Where is the tidal power electricity that he mentions?

As I mentioned in my letter, which was published on the same day, 11,000 turbines were needed to produce 33% of our electricity, so can I ask him the same question I asked Professor Forster – “Where would Iain McIntyre locate another 11,000 wind turbines?” Also, what would he suggest if the wind does not blow? Gas plants?
Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

When the wind doesn’t blow
IN his letter promoting renewable energy, Iain McIntyre claims that the wind does not blow on “one or two days”.

This is far from true, as the whole of the UK gets calm periods on dozens or even scores of days per year. 

For example, at the time of writing (May 22), the output from windfarms spread over the UK’s land and sea with an on-paper capacity of 23,076 MW (megawatts) is rising to more normal levels after a week when the generated output never exceeded 4,000 MW and was at a paltry 518 MW at one point.
Geoff Moore, Alness.

Wanted: a better United Kingdom
I ALMOST agree with the good doctor (Dr Gerald Edwards, ‘Scotland must now move on’, May 19) in that Scotland must move – but by getting a form of equitable governance in the UK. Only the comfortably well-off benefit from a historically English-based parliament with an undemocratic second house full of party hacks and big party  sponsors, plus a few popular stars to sweeten the populace. 

Thatcher sold council houses and public utilities, and tried out the poll tax on us up north. Brexit and Boris were forced on us by a southern majority. A reasonable conclusion is that most Tories are either liars or support liars. References to the 2014 referendum forget how close it was until the last-minute pleadings from Gordon Brown for some kind of federation to save unity – and that was unauthorised by Westminster – but swayed the undecided.

Yes, Dr Edwards, most people would like a United Kingdom – but not the present one!
J B Drummond, Kilmarnock.

French answer to housing shortage
AN interesting read from Dani Garavelli on the housing crisis (May 19) but it’s worth pointing out that a “housing emergency” exists right across the western world – a world awash with money tied up in hedge funds and private equity which use housing shortages as an asset to be “sweated”. 

In some areas of France, those who have short lets for rent also have to provide a property equal in size and amenity for long-term rental, and many cities now charge a substantial residence tax on second homes.

Next to a French villa my wider family had stayed in for some years, the village mayor had set aside an area for housing. This was subdivided into five plots, services installed, and the plots’ purchasers had houses built on them (one by retired local tradesmen.

Perhaps that is the way we should go in Scotland – give villages and towns the legal right to purchase unused land at a knock-down price and designate it for housing (by local builders).
GR Weir, Ochiltree.