AS July 4 approaches, Scottish voters get ever closer to making a decision. Some of course made their minds up long ago. Others across the UK will find themselves not for the first time as "floating voters", disenchanted with politicians of all stripes, and having to choose the least worst party to give their backing to. Here in Scotland things are more complicated as no matter your views on the main Westminster parties, it is our own Scottish Government that has arguably done the most damage to our public services and sought to actively divide us against each other.

It was telling to read of the nuclear industry judging John Swinney to be “anti-science” and “hopelessly ideological” in his stance on nuclear power (“Nuclear chiefs in meltdown over ‘anti-science’ FM’s refusal to support new power plants”, June 16), while at the other end of the political spectrum a left-wing think tank considers the SNP has worked against the interests of college students from less privileged backgrounds (“The Jimmy Reid Foundation accuses SNP of bias against Scotland’s poorest students”, June 16).

The SNP blames the UK for all our woes, but increasingly Scotland realises that it is its government closer to home that has done us the most damage and promises to do yet more. Hopefully on July 4 Scotland will vote to start the process of rejecting the corrosive impact on all our lives of Scottish nationalism's identity politics.

As for those who have still not made their minds up, remember that tactical voting is trying to stop those who promise to do us the most harm.

Keith Howell, West Linton.

Tories could reap rewards

THE General Election campaign in Scotland occasionally focuses on the evasive, vague plans of Labour and the SNP on how quickly they will shut down the oil industry. But there are two other energy sideshows: the recent devastating analysis by nuclear industry experts of the implications for Scotland of no nuclear energy , and the scandalous looking the other way by all parties on the closure of Grangemouth.

The only party in favour of the first two is the Conservatives and their reward could be winning Aberdeen South where in 2019 Labour got 4,000 votes, SNP 20,000 and the Conservatives 16,000 making them the best bet for tactical voters wanting to unseat Stephen Flynn.

Then there's Grangemouth, whose death warrant Nicola Sturgeon signed eight years ago when she banned Ineos from evaluating and exploiting the shale and methane gas deposits underneath the complex. Now Alba, the ragged inheritors of "it's oor oil", are running a no-hope campaign to save it.

The only bright spot in all this is the prospect of the SNP arguing a case for separation that includes cutting a deal for a base electricity supply when the wind doesn't blow, we've no gas or nuclear generation and the fantasy hydrogen industry didn't emerge.

Very soon a 5-1 gubbing by Germany will be the least of our worries.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

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Engineering ignorance

I READ with some dismay, though not surprise, of John Swinney's hostility concerning nuclear power.

A few years ago, prior to the construction of the new Forth crossing at Queensferry, Mr Swinney declared in the Scottish Parliament that a tunnel under the Forth would cost £6 billion and was therefore not an option. Considering that even taking inflation into account the then recently completed Channel Tunnel had cost less than £14bn and is 10 times longer than any proposed tunnel under the Forth and is a triple tunnel, it is clear that neither Mr Swinney, nor the officials providing him with figures, have any idea about what major engineering projects could and should cost.

What is also alarming is that this ignorant nonsense was not challenged by the career politicians in our parliament. If they are so phobic about nuclear radiation they better avoid Aberdeen, or fruit shops which sell bananas.

Alexander Henderson, Dunblane.

Keeping the threat quiet

INEVITABLY those whose business it is to make and promote civilian nuclear power punt a rather selective case during this election.

However, the civil nuclear lobby’s case has a very irradiated elephant in the room. There are national security implications not only for those states which decide to adopt nuclear as energy but for the rest of the world because of global weather patterns.

Occasionally the threat of some limited non-state terrorist attack on a civilian nuclear facility gets an airing, though very rarely the fate of civilian nuclear power stations in a war zone. To be fair the Royal United Services Institute established a programme on some of the implications soon after I published “Castle Zaporizhzhia: War fighting implications linked to the proliferation of nuclear power as part solution to climate chaos”, where I unpack what it is that the nuclear lobby would rather not discuss.

From a purely military standpoint, the occupying Russian forces, whose current, if not future, capabilities are far from overwhelming, will militarily milk the Zaporizhzhia NPP for all of its worth. The militarily intimidatory potential of Zaporizhzhia and future Zaporizhzhiaones are huge.

That said, there is much worse in the pipeline in the shape of the nuclear industry's Small Nuclear Reactors (SNRs).

There are loads of SNRs that are cheaper, so they say, and even potentially mobile, the proliferation of civilian nuclear power on steroids., t a time when the security implications of climate breakdown spread into increasingly unstable regions of the world.

Like John Cleese’s hotelier Basil Fawlty’s solution to the arrival of German tourists ensuring his staff make no reference the Second World War II, a job of the civilian nuclear lobby is to ensure inconveniences and worse of climate breakdown are to be ignored.

Bill Ramsay, Glasgow.

Support Rabbis in quest for peace

I REFER to the letter from Otto Inglis (June 16) attempting but failing to justify the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian population, men, women and children in Gaza. I ask where Palestinian innocents can find justice? I turn for an answer not just to my own faith community, the Church of Scotland, but to those Jews who courageously seek to bring justice to these innocents.

The Church of Scotland website (June 10) reports that Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) organised a cross-religious solidarity march in Jerusalem (in which Church of Scotland ministers took part) against the war in Gaza.

I suggest that RHR is deserving of your readers’ interest and support. It promotes “human dignity, civil rights, social and economic justice, religious freedom and equality, in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. Among its activities are: “Providing a protective presence in areas of conflict, particularly during the olive harvest season. By accompanying Palestinian farmers, we help to prevent violence and harassment, ensuring they can safely access and work their lands and delivering humanitarian aid to communities in need. This includes distributing food and other essential supplies to those affected by settler violence and living under occupation”. Furthermore, "we promote dialogue and cooperation among different religious and ethnic groups. By fostering mutual understanding and respect, we aim to build a more inclusive and peaceful society”.

I hope that your readers will look at the aforementioned Church of Scotland and Rabbis for Human Rights websites. I further suggest that they reflect upon the content of another website Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP) which is a UK organisation guided by a vision of justice, equality and freedom for all people. The Network seeks to promote “a future where everyone, including Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, can live their lives freely in vibrant, safe, equitable communities, with basic human needs fulfilled.”

The JNP is a member of the International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine which is made up of a worldwide network of organisations from 16 countries working as partners with Palestinians in pursuit of justice.

And so the Collective answers the question I posed in the first paragraph. “Israel does not speak for us. We speak for justice.”

John Milne, Uddingston.

Alba is trying to save the Ineos Grangemout plantAlba is trying to save the Ineos Grangemout plant (Image: PA)

Thanks for the Doctor Who kiss

LIKE John V Lloyd (Letters, June 16), I have been watching Doctor Who since the first episode in November 1963. By the time I was a teenager, some years later, I had come to believe that there was something wrong with me because I wanted to kiss other boys. It was years more before I began to realise that I'd been sold a lie by those who claimed that being LGBTQ was flawed.

So my reaction to Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff kissing in a recent episode was very different to Mr Lloyd's; it was: it's about time. Young people need to be able to see clearly that being LGBTQ is a joyful part of life's diversity. And of course some children watching Doctor Who will be sitting on the sofa with their two mums or two dads.

Mr Lloyd seems comfortable that many Doctor Who episodes depict violent, although certainly not realistic, death. To complain then that showing a kiss is inappropriate, because of the genders of the people kissing, is, as the Doctor themself would always have known, completely absurd.

Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh.

Conspicuous absence

IN your article on the decline of the Church of Scotland (“In need of a saviour? Why Reverend still casts a dark shadow over the Kirk”, June 16) no mention was made by the ministers you interviewed of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Good News. May I suggest that not declaring that in their services is exactly why the Church is in such rapid decline.

Michael Watson, Glasgow.