SNP thought indy would bail them out of A9 failure

However, as we know now, independence is a dead duck, at least for quite some time. Furthermore, for Nicola Sturgeon to tell the current inquiry that a minimum 10-year delay is significantly caused by Brexit and Covid is as contemptuous as her convenient memory failures at the Salmond inquiry and her recent acceptance of a £25,000 fee for election punditry ("Nicola Sturgeon paid £25k to work as ITV general election pundit", heraldscotland, October 31) despite her previous condemnation of Ruth Davidson for a similar action (but for a much smaller sum).

Duncan Sooman, Milngavie.

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Scotland should seek damages

RACHEL Reeves raises taxes and blames her predecessors.

George Osborne proposed austerity and blamed his predecessors.

Labour gained power in the nineties claiming “things could only get better” and blamed its predecessors.

Margaret Thatcher gained power with the slogan “Labour isn’t working” and blamed her predecessors.

Without Westminster, an independent Norway has used its oil revenues to become, if not the richest, one of the most prosperous in the world.

We may not have been worth much before oil but now we owe a share of trillions. Instead of contenting ourselves with a few extra bawbees tossed our way to make us less poor than some south of the Border, should we in Scotland not join with our Commonwealth friends and seek reparation?

Alan Carmichael, Glasgow.

Long history of colonial abuse

CHARLES III, Defender of Henry VIII's English Faith, is descended, according to official records, from Sophia, Electress of Hanover.

Sophia's uncle, Charles Stuart (First of the United Kingdom) like his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, had had his head chopped off in England: they were both regarded as threats to the regimes based in London. Forty years after the execution of Charles I, the Massacre of Glencoe was carried out as a warning that absolute subservience was required to William of Orange, the monarch selected by the English Parliament, to replace the direct Stuart line. This colonial treatment of Scotland, London's first and last target, openly established and enforced by Cromwell, continues to this day.

There never was an Elizabeth I, unless you replace the history of this so called "union" of kingdoms with the imperial history of England. There were still enough people in the 1950s aware of this insult, to protest vehemently, and more or less successfully, against the colonial stamp of "EIIR" on red postboxes.

Colonial, asset-stripping powers like the British/English Empire require absolute, subservient loyalty. They know very well the vital importance of subduing and destroying native identities and culture, of erasing and/or denying unpleasant truths about their regimes, of imposing their imperial version of history on all their subjects, of demoralising challenges from independence movements, often by targeting their leaders, of manipulating local individuals and institutions in the oldest tactic of all: divide and rule. The hellish, brutal aftermath of Culloden including suppressive military garrisons throughout Scotland has horrific similarities with the bloody physical and cultural subjugation presently being unearthed and highlighted throughout ex-colonies of that awful Empire, from Australia to Canada.

In 2021, the Unionist MP, Andrew Bowie demonstrated London's horror that, despite every imperial dirty trick in the book perpetrated against the independence movement and our leaders, since the 2014 referendum, support for independence stands firm. He demanded control of what and how Scottish children are allowed to know about their own heritage ("Scots Tory MP Andrew Bowie backs 'Unionist fightback’ in the classroom", heraldscotland, June 10, 2021). This desperate lunge at censorship unwittingly betrayed London's understanding that mere knowledge of the facts of the last 400 years - the colonial abuse of Scotland - is bound to inflame any young person's sense of justice and make independence the obvious choice.

Other ex-colonies have now written their own history books. They are watching; knowing and telling us that that Scotland has common cause with them: we are on the same road. To the City of London and its puppets in Westminster, Scotland, the last colony, is vitally ripe for vicious, environmentally destructive asset-stripping; subjugated by incessant, demoralising propaganda and continuing, cynically dishonoured pledges since 1603.

Ireland, India and the people of all the other ex-colonies would tell us they remember the same experiences and worse; that it's time urgently, for Scotland's sake, to overcome the tactics of unionist lackeys and their media so that we finally break free of colonial misrule and start writing our own positive internationalist history, and our future, once more.

Frances McKie, Evanton.

Why Trump is winning

MARK McGeoghegan ("Trump is no old-school fascist but he’s as much a threat to democracy", The Herald, November 1) appears to have fallen into the usual left-wing trap, similar to that of the Scottish Nationalists, that anything with which they disagree or that is right-inclined is a "threat to democracy".

Perhaps he is missing that fact that the so-called Democrats have forced in a presidential candidate who did not go through any official nomination process: a candidate who has been Vice-President through years of doing nothing to help the economy; who has done nothing to address huge numbers of illegal criminal immigrants; who appears unable to give a speech without a script but who relies instead on endless inane giggling; who dismissed an entire generation (Generation Z) as "idiots"; whose party has dismissed all their opponents as "garbage"; whose party politicised the judiciary against their opponent to such a degree that any genuine and legitimate concerns became hidden; who by her own admission is unable even to think on her feet; and who in her Vice-Presidency has had one of the lowest ever approval ratings in modern history.

Her entire campaign has been one of negativity against her opponent. Unlike Harris, her opponent shows a genuine desire to put his country first - not himself - who supports their armed forces and police officers, and who address the problems that the Democrats have neglected. It is no wonder that polls are in Trump's favour the right have had enough of the left's division and deflection.

Steph Johnson, Glasgow.

Donald Trump (Image: PA)

The problem with wind turbines

ALAN Fitzpatrick (Letters, November 31) is bang on the money as he questions the design and effectiveness of wind turbines. The blades are also prone to erosion and expensive repair. No-one seemed to consider the vulnerability of the leading edges travelling at 300 mph which are prone to impact damage; Tommy Sopwith knew this and fitted steel deflectors to the front of his wooden propellers in the 1910s.

He might also consider that their blades have a time life as a result of their continual flexing causing fatigue. Originally it was thought that the blades would last 20 to 25 years but this has been reduced to 15 to 20 years, especially with the giant blades now being produced. At present we are producing 170,000 tonnes of time-lifed blades per annum and due to the exponential expansion of the wind farms this is expected to be 30,000,000 tonnes by 2030 and 50,000,000 tonnes by 2050. They cannot be recycled and will not be allowed to go to landfill, so what will be their final destination?

I attended a presentation about a new wind farm near West Kilbride and asked the "experts" about this and the vacant stares, stuttering and stammering betrayed their ignorance on the subject.

In the meantime a few, mostly foreign, individuals build, operate and benefit financially from these white behemoths whilst we build upon our fuel poverty.

Peter Wright, West Kilbride.