Baddecision

The First Minister has made many misjudgments but she has surpassed herself in coming out against the Cambo oil field development. It is, after all, just seven years since the Independence referendum when the SNP’S infamous paper on the benefits of independence was predicated on “Scotland’s oil” and a price per barrel in excess of $100.

The future was financially rosy in an “independent” Scotland. Sturgeon’s volte-face on this issue is entirely political and frankly has nothing to do with “Green” jobs or the environment. She fails to mention the huge job losses coming down the road in the North East, nor her and her Government’s complete failure in creating some of the highly skilled Green jobs that were promised. There is no answer to the questioning around increasing our reliance on imported oil from regimes with appalling human rights records and where we have absolutely zero influence into working practices, never mind the environmental practices in extracting the oil. We have exactly those influences in extracting oil from the Cambo field. Her decision is a sop to the Green lobby and in an instant will cast thousands of jobs onto the scrap heap.

Finally, it rather looks like she has also misjudged her support in the North East, and not just among the electorate but also fellow SNP MSP’S. The case for independence is economically dead and the First Minister’s ill-thought out political decision will come back to haunt her.

RICHARD ALLISON

Edinburgh

Gill Turner in support of the First Minister's decision to allow Val Mcdermid's latest book to be launched at Bute House (Letters, 19 November).

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Val Mcdermid is an Independence-supporting SNP voter.

Of course our fair-minded First Minister would have allowed this book launch at Bute House even if Ms Mcdermid had been a Conservative-voting supporter of the Union.

DAVID WALKER

Edinburgh