Scotland must build a green future for all

YOUR leader states: “It falls to the Scottish Government to make sure that in forging our green future, it has the interests of the many, not the few, at heart” (Embrace a green future, Editorial, October 1). This is a vital principle. The difficulty of enacting legislation which runs counter to the interests of the tax haven lobby demands boldness and enlightenment, be it dealing with the cruelty of the shooting elite, selling arms to Saudi Arabia or the power grab of a fracking proponent.

Believers in progress should beware. Ruth Davidson’s trip to the Manchester Tory conference may have more to do with unseating Nicola Sturgeon than pointing out you can “sell a three-bed semi in Ilford and buy up half of Sutherland”. That remark is perhaps better suited to illustrating the erstwhile treatment of the Highlands by her beloved party, but a brilliant example of the wealth gap, past and present.

Back home, meanwhile, the ritual pheasant slaughter is reduced to money and jobs. Yemen is far away, and we are told that fracking will boost Scotland’s economy; once again, at the hands of the few: people and the environment pay. Iain R Thomson Cannich SO Nicola Sturgeon is to ban fracking in Scotland (Revealed: SNP will ban fracking in Scotland, News, October 1). Really? If she does, this means just now, as Labour’s renaissance continues, she seeks popular support in the form of central belt and Fife votes more than she needs to big up a new tax stream to replace collapsed North Sea tax receipts.

But if Scotland were ever to become independent, expect a dramatic U-turn. Without a massive new source of public-sector finance to replace the Barnett Formula, Sturgeon’s independence dreams are dead in the water. Martin Redfern Edinburgh THE SNP-dominated Scottish Government has, after a public consultation, outlawed fracking despite the fact that it would create 3,100 jobs and bring £6.5 billion of investment to Scotland.

The 60,000 who voted against fracking because they believed all the scare stories need to be reminded that the Advertising Standards Authority, earlier this year, told Friends of the Earth not to repeat claims made in an anti-fracking leaflet, which included allegations that fracking caused health problems, that water used in fracking contained a toxic cocktail of chemicals which could end up in drinking water, that 25 per cent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer.

Just about everything we touch contains plastic derived from shale gas so will the 60,000 stop using “tainted” goods? Clark Cross Linlithgow