Sir, – Assuming it was not an early one of The P&J’s excellent April Fool articles in Thursday’s paper, to see the MoD saying that Kinloss Barracks are due to have their accommodation elements upgraded and improved was not good news.
By the normal pattern of MoD procedures, then we can expect 39 Engineer to be posted and the barracks closed and sold off at a loss within the next two years.
Alastair Armitstead, Achiltibuie, Ross and Cromarty.
Boris to blame for Brexit catastrophe
Sir, – Ivan Reid’s claims (Letters, March 28) about the PM’s ability, and criticism of Chris Deerin’s article, are absurd.
No recent P&J opinion writers respect the PM. The same people claiming Brexit success caused 18 months of Brexit paralysis, rooted in 50 rebel Conservative European Research Group MPs and Johnson refusing to back their PM over Northern Ireland.
Brexit has delivered nothing but red tape and drastic business cuts with the UK’s biggest partner, the EU, and even more anger over the unresolved situation in Northern Ireland.
Other trade deals are tiny or rollovers of existing agreements, and indeed threaten great harm to UK farmers and seafood exporters.
Recently Mr Johnson was shunned by foreign leaders due to his crass linking of Brexit and Ukraine. Already untrustworthy on deals he signed, he has now made himself despised by using Ukraine’s horrors to further his own position.
Chris Deerin and other P&J columnists are a credit to true analysis of a mediocre self-serving leader. Any deliveries have come from public servants; his deliveries are debt (£38 billion on useless Test and Trace) and a cost of living crisis.
Mike Hannan, Cults, Aberdeen.
Ukraine not linked to UK break-up
Sir, – I am bemused by correspondents and nationalist politicians who use the invasion of Ukraine to justify nuclear disarmament and make the case for Scottish independence stronger.
What planet are they on?
Most normal people see the value of a deterrent, especially in these uncertain times, as being key to Nato’s strength and stopping Putin using nuclear weapons himself. An independent Scotland without nuclear defence would be vulnerable to any threat with no means of negotiated retaliation.
The Russian president, it seems to me, could easily take over an undefended Scotland.
What relevance has the Ukraine war to Scottish independence ? None, as far as I can see.
Those calling for another referendum – which they will not get – are blinded by nationalism at any cost.
A UK with a nuclear facility is strong militarily and economically. Let’s keep it that way.
Andrew Dingwall-Fordyce, Garlogie House, Westhill, Aberdeenshire.
We have failed to heed history again
Sir, – I enjoyed the letter from Murray Walker.
Politicians of all colours have “never learned the lessons of history”, he says.
I have been involved on a project for the Ballater War Memorial which celebrates its centenary in July.
Lessons were not learned in the aftermath of the Boer War, resulting in a poorly prepared army in 1914. History would be repeated in 1939.
We are seeing in Russia the threat yet again to peace and while I accept that no government can force regime change on a sovereign state, I fear a peace deal will allow war criminals in both the leadership and military to get back on to the world stage.
President Biden openly stated what I personally agree with and I appreciate that should only have been stated in the Oval Office as an aim for the CIA to bring about, but let us hope Syria and Ukraine are not this century’s version of Spain, Czechoslovakia and Poland of the 1930s.
Great piece Murray.
John Burrows, Anderson Road, Ballater, Aberdeenshire.