2 days ago
Funding for Scottish projects is a bribe to sweeten the nuclear pill
We will also get funds for the Acorn carbon capture project in Aberdeenshire, which was ready to establish a world-first pilot more than a decade ago, but was refused funding by Westminster in spite of support from the oil companies agreeing to the use of their pipelines and depleted wells, and at a time when its success might have saved Longannet. This project site was also bypassed when funding was allocated instead to two sites in England and was left on the back burner.
READ MORE: Scottish Government 'short-changed by £1bn by Rachel Reeves'
However, I wonder even now if it will actually go ahead. I may be becoming a conspiracy theorist, but I suspect these two funding offers are the bribe to sweeten the pill of Scotland providing the facilities for the Westminster intention to increase the nuclear components of their defence plans and to base them at Faslane, as far from London as possible. I believe that is precisely the purpose of the funding to 'upgrade' to that site and will be the first recipient project to be undertaken. Thereafter, it is not beyond possibility that 'changing fiscal circumstances' might still see the other two cancelled, again.
I firmly believe that the majority of Scots already consider that having nuclear capacity so close to our largest city makes us a first-strike target and want them removed. If it is safe enough on that site, then somewhere on the Thames in the periphery of London should be equally safe. Of course, when the upgrade is completed, the redundant subs etc will then quickly be added to the rotting hulks at Rosyth and radioactive material buried somewhere in the north of Scotland.
Are we happy to host yet more, more powerful nukes, attack submarines and such dangerous material anywhere in Scotland? If not, independence is the only way to avoid it, and soon!
L McGregor
Falkirk
BRITAIN is paying interest of more than £100 billion a year to banks and other lenders, on money borrowed to finance the ever-increasing gap between our national income and expenditure.
Overspending has been a feature of our economy for many years, but is now being exacerbated by an ageing population, defence spending, immigration, and net zero.
Chancellor Reeves clearly grasps this, but accumulated government debt – some £3000 billion – and the £100bn of annual interest it demands can never be reduced by domestic measures such as taxation.
READ MORE: SNP say 'cuts in every detail' of Rachel Reeves's Spending Review
The time has come to grasp the real problem, which is that the private banking system creates the public money supply – at interest – when government itself should be creating that money for public undertakings, free of interest.
This would vastly improve our circumstances, as well as giving government real control over money and policy, rather than the contorted fiscal juggling needed at present to accommodate the banks.
Doing this would not be easy, but would definitely mark the economic turning point of the century.
A word in bankers' ears is the long-overdue first step. Just to tell them that their fun of lending money created from thin air is over, and the fiscal boot is about to be moved to the other foot, before it all ends in tears.
An independent Scotland, on the other hand, could issue its own money – to be used internally only at first, in order to be free of the money markets, and have its own central bank to build reserves of foreign currency for international business.
Eventually, that Scottish currency would be strong enough to be floated internationally, and the parasitic banking system that takes but never gives would be gone from Scotland.
Malcolm Parkin
Kinross
IT is both comforting and distressing that so many readers of The National appear to hold the same concerns that I have over John Swinney's leadership of the SNP. The grumblings in the party are getting louder, and more and more members are staying away from branch meetings or any campaigning activity – there is no guarantee they will come out during the election campaign.
It is interesting that others in the party are discussing forcing Mr Swinney to push for independence, but I really believe his devolutionist mindset is fixed and we'll get the same push that we had under Nicola Sturgeon where independence is only mentioned to gee up the members – but we've all been fooled by this in the past and I don't think it will have any impact if used again.
READ MORE: Top SNP figures in secret meeting to discuss John Swinney's leadership
I understand why elected SNP politicians don't want to raise their heads above the parapet – John Swinney has a long history of sticking the boot into those who oppose him – you only have to ask former SNP MSP Campbell Martin about that. So I could see another member doing a Bill Wilson to get enough votes to undermine Mr Swinney's leadership.
It is a sad day when you have to look at action to make the leader of the largest pro-independence party in Scotland actually commit to pushing for independence, but that's where we are. I should also hope that there is a massive clear-out of the National Executive Committee – for too long they have been the nodding dogs of the leadership and have completely failed in their role of holding the leadership to account.
We don't have too long to sort this problem out, but it needs done or we will see a Unionist coalition running the Scottish Government.
Alex Beckett
Paisley
