Sir, – William Morgan (Letters, March 1) raises a salient point in regard to council tax reform.
All parties have promised to do this, not just the SNP, but none has taken the necessary measures. It will be interesting to see if any of the political parties raise this issue in the forthcoming local authority elections.
Ron Campbell, Richmond Walk, Aberdeen.
Question all that politicians tell you
Sir, – My thanks to Mhairi Rennie (Letters, February 26) who seeks to “enlighten” me regarding those elusive Brexit dividends I mentioned in my correspondence of February 19.
Unfortunately she missed my point and should have written directly to our Minister for Brexit Opportunities, Jacob Rees-Mogg. He is the one claiming to be in the dark.
However, what she says definitely needs a reply. She states that the UK was only “able to undertake its own vaccination procurement process” speedily because we had left the EU. I don’t blame anyone for believing this lie because PM Boris Johnson repeats it over and over again in Parliament.
In fact we had not left the EU at the time. We were still “in transition” and therefore subject to EU rules. What Tories hope we don’t know is that, under European law, individual member countries can use an emergency procedure which allows them, for example, to close borders, or to buy, approve and distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.
I make no comment on the ethics of bulk-buying vaccines over the heads of poorer nations and there is no room here to respond to Mhairi’s other points, but a little fact checking will yield similar results to the above.
Thanks to Trump, many politicians now lie repeatedly and without shame, even after being corrected. The Brexit lie needs ever more elaborate lies to preserve the illusion. Misinformation is dangerous. Question everything. It’s your only hope of ever seeing any light again.
William McLeod, Netherbrae, Turriff, Aberdeenshire.
Green influence on nuclear power
Sir, – I note with interest that Germany, post-Merkel and in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine, has stopped the final certification of the Nord Stream pipeline and is, as a result, looking at ways to reduce its dependency on Russian energy. This includes attempting to halt the shutting down of four nuclear power stations due to close this year.
It will be recalled that these were mandated to close following the Fukushima event in Japan.
At the time Merkel was dependent on the Greens to retain her position. The Greens typically reacted to the Fukushima event with emotion rather than facts and demanded that Germany’s nuclear stations should close as a result.
This paid no recognition of the fact that the Japanese power station survived the earthquake as it was designed to do. It was the tsunami which killed the back-up generators in its basement and caused the catastrophic shutdown.
Germany has the most expensive domestic electricity costs in Europe and is increasing really dirty emissions by burning brown coal to generate electricity.
Merkel mandated these shutdowns in spite of the fact that the likelihood of tsunamis in Germany is vanishingly remote.
In Scotland the Greens are in a similar place to that in Germany a few years ago. Ms Sturgeon take note!
Mike Salter, Glassel, Banchory, Aberdeenshire.