Let’s tax cars on how much REAL harm they cause
I servIced my first car in 1964 and have always been conscientious when servicing. My previous four cars had diesel engines. I use redex and have replaced the standard air filters with high-performance ones.
I use synthetic oil, changing it every 4,000 miles and the oil filters at 8,000 miles.
clean engines are efficient, and on a run from Grasmere in cumbria to Ayr, I achieved 56 mpg with a 1.9-litre car. A fellow Probus club member has just bought a Peugeot 308 1.6-litre diesel with the AdBlue injection system and particulate filter, meeting the 2015 euro6 standard. He boasts that he achieves more than 70 mpg.
AdBlue is a mix of urea and de-ionised water. Injected into the exhaust system, it combines with nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide to produce water and nitrogen, reducing harmful emissions by 80 per cent.
If the basis for setting vehicle tax levels were an engine’s harmful emissions, the annual charge for PsA Group (Peugeot/citroen) vehicles would be minimal. The nonsense here in Northern Ireland is that MOT centres don’t even check diesel emissions.
Had it been my choice, I would still be driving a diesel car, but my wife chose a citroen ds3 with a petrol engine which emits 135mg cO2 per 100km. so I now pay tax of £130 annually.
GORDON WILEMAN, Portstewart, Co Londonderry.
A nation divided
THe sNP doesn’t need any help in ‘splitting the UK’ (Mail): the UK is already broken.
In 1882, Breton philosopher ernest renan defined a nation as having ‘common glories in the past, a common will in the present’.
It’s hard to describe the UK as a nation, considering the contrasting opinions throughout the country. But how would splitting the UK further help?
It would leave the population of an independent scotland still split. The 2014 referendum saw scotland divided 45/55. I was unhappy with the eU referendum result, but I want to live in a nation where democracy is respected.
LUCY CLODE, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Don’t fear EU threats
sO there are apparently growing changes of mind about leaving the eU amid the climate of fear intended by French threats to ‘punish’ us. I would hope that the inward investment in the UK of £197billion last year, as opposed to the previous year’s £33billion might stiffen some backbones.
When the British people have been threatened in the past cen-turies, we didn’t back down, please don’t do so now. It was obvious that there were possibly going to be a few difficult years for us, but the benefits of being free of this corrupt, undemocratic monolith, would be worth it. RObERT D kNOx, bishopbriggs,
Dunbartonshire.
Soft-boiled Brexit
THe ‘soft/hard’ Brexit dialogue is mesmeric but deceptive.
After Jean-claude Juncker dictated that no country outside the eU could be in the single market without accepting freedom of movement, Mrs May had no choice but to announce that Britain would leave that market.
There is no ‘soft’ option unless ‘soft’ means continuing towards a federal europe. The ‘soft’ option the Lib dems et al really want is not leaving the eU. In the battle of the soundbites, the term ‘soft’ appeals to those who want easy street. ‘Hard’ is associated with adversity. This is a false premise.
Mrs May isn’t seeking anything harder for Britain than rapprochement with the european mainland. Any ‘hardness’ is likely to come from the other side.
The UK’s post-referendum position is realistic and diligent. The eU has become something like expensive gym membership which isn’t good value: we don’t use it often, so it makes sense to pay for ‘as and when’ we use it rather than pay an exorbitant annual fee.
Just how ‘hard’ realigning ourselves with the eU will be will depend largely on the eU. WENDY NEVARD, New Romney, kent.
Broken SNP promises
IN Nicola sturgeon’s manifesto for government, published in April 2016, she pledged to increase car-er’s Allowance from £62.10 to £73.10 per week to bring it into line with unemployment benefits.
A full year on, she has done pre-cisely nothing to move this impor-tant issue forward. To date, her inaction has cost every one of these selfless people more than £500, despite the fact they save her Government millions of pounds every year in social care provision.
But let’s cast our minds back to May 2007, when the sNP stood for election on a key manifesto pledge to scrap the council tax, described then by Miss sturgeon as ‘hated’ and ‘unfair’. Alex salmond’s plan to replace it with a local income tax was subsequently scrapped in February 2009, less than two years after the sNP was elected.
The sNP has considerable ‘form’ for breaking promises, not just to the poorest and most vulnerable, but also to the most dedicated members of society.
Just look at shona robison’s recent U-turn on limiting the working hours of junior doctors. Like so many other pledges, it has since been consigned to the annals of the sNP’s long list of broken promises.
One last thing. I wonder if any- one has heard how that syrian refugee is getting on – the one Miss sturgeon, in september 2015, stated she would be ‘absolutely happy to give a home to, tempo-rarily or for a longer period’? No. I haven’t heard how they’re getting on either...
A. MORRIsON, Aberdeenshire.
Missing subtitles
FUrTHer to John cooper’s Weekender column on sTv2’s News Tonight, may I draw your attention to the fact that one in six of scotland’s population suf-fers varying degrees of hearing loss? sTv2 has no subtitles on any of its programmes.
I have made it aware of this situ-ation and only received a very negative reply. I am profoundly deaf and consider this to be discriminatory. MARGARET hAMILTON,
via email.
Antisocial media
I’ve just returned from a week’s break in Portugal. At every meal there, you could see children eating with one hand and with a tablet or phone in the other. I pity their social skills and the world when they get older. They aren’t being taught by their parents, who sit at the table and ignore them.
bARRY TEAGUE, Peterborough, Cambs.