Readers' Letters: Yousaf's latest cunning plan is another waste of time

Humza Yousaf has launched another of his “Building a New Scotland” papers prepared by civil servants working for the SNP. This fifth effort, on citizenship and passports, would have been marked as mediocre if it had presented by a sixth year pupil for a Modern Studies Advanced Higher project.

The SNP’s attempt to build independence around a fantasy Brigadoon Scotland is consistently shipwrecked on the rocks of currency and the economy. SNP’s Paper 3, A Stronger Economy with Independence, was comprehensively demolished by economists and even severely criticised by prominent independence supporters.

Until the nationalists can come up with a coherent currency plan and an honest admission that Scotland’s crippling fiscal and trade deficits would require large tax increases and painful public spending cuts, their dream of secession is actually a nightmare.

Instead of launching party political white papers the Nationalists should concentrate on the practical government of Scotland and perhaps launch a couple of ferries instead.

Is First Minister Humza Yousaf boxing clever with his latest paper on Independence? (Picture: Andy Barr)

James Quinn, Lanark

Ecosse not

I fear that the Scottish Government will have given in to the temptation when drafting a design for a Scottish passport to pay homage to those twin drivers of independence – Mel Gibson’s Braveheart face combined with a splash of tartan, so beloved of shortbread tin manufacturers.

I will be able to bear the shame, however, as I imagine that I’ll be travelling in obscurity, as of course it will be unlikely that the designers sink to using English in the document. Most of Europe, thank goodness, have no idea of what or where is Ecosse.

Matthew Gibb, Greenlaw, Berwickshire

Out of the box

Humza Yousaf is really taking matters seriously to show that he is Nicola Sturgeon's continuity candidate. Like her, he takes every opportunity for self promotion and photo opportunities, whilst peddling the most irrelevant initiatives which have no bearing upon addressing the financial wellbeing of Scotland and the many SNP failures in power such as drug deaths, the ferry saga and the NHS, to mention just a few. His latest wheeze (your report, 27 July) was to be photographed sparring wearing boxing gloves. How I wished his sparring partner had landed a head shot to knock some sense into him for the benefit of the electorate.

Fraser MacGregor, Edinburgh

Wrong targets

The Met Office has forecast that by 2070 winters will be between 1C and 4.5C warmer and up to 30 per cent wetter and summers between 1C and 6C warmer and up to 60 per cent wetter drier, and without rapid, globally concerted efforts to reduce emissions, the recent changes observed in UK climate are set to increase.

But how much of these changes can mankind avoid, how much is outwith our control and therefore how much effort and money should we be investing in resilience measures to mitigate the impact?

The data analysis Statista service takes a more realistic view: “the global temperature increase is estimated to reach a median of 2.7 degrees Celsius in 2100. In the best-case scenario, where all announced net-zero targets, long-term targets, and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are fully implemented, the global temperature is still expected to rise by 1.8 degrees Celsius, when compared to the pre-industrial average”.

In other words, irrespective of human efforts, two thirds of climate change ie temperature rise, will be “non-anthropogenic”, which means not caused by, and can't be controlled by, mankind – therefore it will happen anyway.

If that's the case, shouldn't we pay more attention to an excellent report by the OECD entitled "Strengthening resilience for a changing climate”. For example, coastal erosion, flood, wind, water supply and the impact of drought on famine, loss of arable land overseas and dealing with the inevitable mass migration to more temperate countries?

To pick one local example, should almost £200 million be invested in the Acorn carbon capture project, whose commercial viability is very much in doubt, or used to augment the £1 billion the UK government spends annually on flood and coastal erosion risk management which they say can" protect hundreds of thousands more properties as well as avoid £32 billion of wider economic damages.

And where does all this leave Patrick Harvie's plan to somehow find and spend £33 billion on replacing our current heating systems?

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Heat vision

I am deeply concerned by the total ignorance and incompetence of the Scottish Government's, particularly Patrick Harvie's, obsession with heat pumps. More abhorrent and undemocratic is making the sale of a property subject to installing one.

Heat pumps have a place; in newbuilds and maybe some existing smaller properties from a retrofit perspective – but they are not the only option. This Scottish Government has not undertaken the necessary rigorous, detailed, risk-based technical/engineering cost benefit analysis, to make the flawed claims and proposed legislation currently being pushed.

Given Scotland's massive potential to generate electricity and that electric boilers are more compatible with existing heating systems such as gas, why are we not advancing cheap electricity (as promised in the 1980s) and electric heating as a very viable alternative – especially for retrofits.

Retrofitting heat pumps to older properties comes with many problems, especially the older and larger ones, and so the more expensive this will be; larger or two pumps, new radiators, piping and total redecoration may be required, culminating in costs over £20,000. Actual heating costs can exceed current bills to deliver required temperatures (especially for the elderly or disabled). There is no obvious break-even point where what you paid for installation moves into where you are making a saving – probably this point may not be for 1-3 decades, if at all.

Furthermore, where are all these pumps going to come from and who are the reliable and competent suppliers? The potential for unregulated "cowboys" is an obvious risk. How are flats, maisonettes, tenements offices, hospitals, care homes going to comply? It would be totally unfair if solely those with houses are targeted.

Mick Bwye, Dollar, Clackmannanshire

Weather or not

I wonder whether people would feel more engaged with and responsible for extreme weather events such as the one presently incinerating the island of Rhodes if they were referred to not as "climate change” but as “climate damage”.

Bridget M Stevens, Edinburgh

ScotRail follies

What a treat to ride a train this summer to Glasgow Central at high noon! ScotRail really have the fine art of customer relations down to a T. Travel from an unmanned station with no ticket facilities, enjoying the anticipatory thrill of a train conductor that never appears, then the exciting plot twist of discovering upon disembarking that the large ticket booth for Platforms 11 to 15 is closed.

Laugh, if you can, at the ironic explanation from the nonchalant employee with armoured body language at the other side of the barriers about a "lack of staff" whilst four of his hi-vis vested colleagues wander around your side of the barriers like farts in a trance.

Join a merry throng of increasingly exasperated tourists and stressed-out appointment-to-keepers, awaiting a ScotRail staff member leisurely waddling round before burning away another five minutes setting up their portable ticket machine to work.

Yes sirree, it's all the fun of the fare with ScotRail – really earning those price rises and mammoth wage rises they striked for, aren't they?

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Family ties

If Marjorie Ellis Thompson is correct that “England needs Scotland”, not vice versa, then that seems an excellent justification for continuing the UK (Letters, 27 July). Why would we not want a union with an immediate neighbour with whom we have so much in common, numerous family and friendship ties, and a far greater level of mutually beneficial trading relationships than with any other nation; and which, warts and all, has proved of great benefit to the wider world?

Anent her “Brexit backlog” jibe, our economic growth since 2016 has exceeded Germany’s and Italy’s, albeit fractionally below France’s, and our exports to the EU have greatly increased.

As for her disgraceful implication of the UK or England “gleefully watching” refugees and migrants drowning – no comment.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

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