If we all tighten our belts, we’ll survive winter

RUTH SUNDERLAND paints a bleak, but true, picture of what lies ahead as Russia weaponises its energy resources (Mail).

There are no easy answers, but one aspect has not been properly addressed: our usage of what is fast becoming a scarce, hence expensive, commodity.

Every household has the right to a reasonable supply of electricity and gas at a relatively affordable cost, even if this means reducing usage by switching off lights when you leave the room and wearing layers to keep warm.

I was born in the 1950s when central heating was something only the rich could afford. There was a coal boiler in the kitchen and an open fire in the front room, which was lit after 5pm in the winter. The rest of the house was cold, sometimes with frost on the inside of windows. We survived!

At this difficult time, I believe energy usage must be shared on a fairer basis. Every household should receive a number of kilowatts of energy at a subsidised price.

Using more than is deemed necessary for heating, lighting and cooking would be paid for on a steeply graduated basis. The first big bill may encourage the profligate to mend their ways.

In the short term, poorer and thrifty households would have lower bills, those not prepared to economise would pay a premium and government subsidies would be kept to a minimum.

SIMON SMITH, Margate, Kent.

WHY is the Government making things so complicated with a £400 rebate on utility bills? Why don’t ministers simply tell the energy companies: ‘Don’t be so greedy!’

We are not going to put up with their ridiculous price rises while they announce huge profits. They are trying to bleed us dry while lining their pockets.

Mrs JUNE ESTE, Newbury, Berks.

Charged to the hilt

ACCoRDING to the RAC, the increased price of electricity will mean it will cost more to travel long distances in an electric car than a petrol vehicle – even before factoring in the much higher purchase price for electric cars.

However, many EV owners do not pay for all their vehicles’ electricity but are being subsidised by those who pay income tax, council tax and through 20 per cent VAT.

Supermarkets have free charging points, as do railway stations, but why are UK councils squandering our council tax on free electricity and free parking? CLARK CROSS, Linlithgow,

West Lothian.

AS electricity prices go through the roof and petrol and diesel prices remain sky-high, is it fair that EV drivers enjoy freebies paid for by the silent majority?

There are 1,376 free EV chargers in Scotland and 465 in Greater

London. Free charging is provided by councils throughout Scotland and by 21 councils in England and Wales.

It is scandalous that a Porsche Taycan owner who can afford £75,000 for his battery car can receive free or subsidised electricity while hard-working men and women struggle to pay the full price. To them who hath shall be given, it would seem. WILLIAM LONESKIE, Lauder,

Berwickshire.

The right match

THE 20 searching questions they would ask a first date (Mail) and their desired ‘partner requirements’ made me feel sad for singletons David Sanderson and Julie Silver.

I met my husband on a blind date when neither of us had any pre-conceived expectations. And thank goodness for that.

Months later he confessed that if he’d known I was a smoking, single mum surrounded by cats and dogs, he’d have run a mile.

We have just celebrated our 20th anniversary and he usually has a cat on his lap. With lots of grandchildren he adores, he looks perfectly content to me.

David and Julie just need to be more open-minded.

EMMA REID, Cardiff.

SURELY the most suitable date for David would be Julie. They both like themselves a lot and neither mentioned kindness in their list of requirements for a potential partner. ALISON REEVES, Rushden, Northants.

Language barrier

HELP ma Boab! Speaking of Scots, the best/worst example of it I remember hearing was the Scots expert from the National Library of Scotland (aye, they really do have one) telling us that the Scots for his organisation’s name was – wait for it – the National Library o Scotland.

How many of the thousands of true Scots words will the students of the ‘language’ learn? ‘Scunner’ and ‘glaikit’, maybe?

So, will the students be able to translate such as the following lines from Burns:

She dights her grunzie wi’ a hushion

Her walie nieves like midden-creels.

And some will tell you that Ayrshire Scots is no longer relevant and has been replaced by ‘modern Scots’ such as the Chewin’ the Fat classic ‘Goanynodaethat’.

It wid fair mak ye greet, wid it no?

What’s that you say? What’s the translation of the lines from

Burns? Best ask all the people who ticked the Yes box in the Census form to the question ‘Do you speak Scots?’

JIM ADAMSON, Cupar, Fife.

WHAT a brilliant piece by Jonathan Brocklebank in Friday’s Mail about the SNP’s latest vanity project to do with the Scots language. Straight to the point and very funny at the same time.

It’s up there with Richard Littlejohn’s part English/part French piece a few years back.

BOB PROCTOR, Cupar, Fife.

Double trouble

NICoLA Sturgeon left behind piles of rubbish in Edinburgh to open a Scottish Government office in Copenhagen, thereby adding to the eight offices in other countries which cost more than £9million a year to run.

When I was with the Scotch Whisky Association, I was responsible for improving worldwide export performance by seeking to eliminate the many tariff and nontariff trade barriers facing Scotch whisky in its overseas markets.

Such barriers existed in six of the countries in which Scottish Government offices now exist but, at the time, did not. However, working closely with the British embassies and a High Commission, the trade barriers were eliminated and Scotch whisky exports duly increased significantly.

Why, then, is there a need for the costly duplication of Scottish Government offices when British embassies and High Commissions already exist worldwide and are doing an excellent job on behalf of all UK interests?

one suspects the reasons are that Nicola Sturgeon loves empirebuilding – and anything that detracts from her policy failures. TIM JACKSON, Gullane, East

Lothian.

Who would be PM?

APART from an ego trip, why would anyone wish to be prime minister? With the world in turmoil and the unions trying to bring down the Government, it’s got to be the worst job in the world. Half of the population hate you; TV interviewers throw insults at you; and no one says thank you for the good things you do.

If the stress doesn’t kill you, then the only positive is that, like Tony Blair, you can make millions when you leave office.

IAN FULLER, Harrogate.

THE new prime minister will need to take drastic action to get the country back on its feet.

Boris’s Government has been a mess, sloppy and without discipline. The task of rebuilding will be difficult, but here’s hoping.

BRIAN BEST, High Wycombe, Bucks.

WITH Britain in a right state, strikes and the two leadership candidates swinging handbags at each other, can I ask: who is running the country? Is there anyone in charge?

IAN BOUGHTON, Dilham, Norfolk.

I ASK again ‘What have they done?’ All those Tory parliamentarians who engineered the removal of Boris have massaged their egos to the detriment of the Tory party. It now lags behind Labour by 14 per cent.

We will lose the next General Election. Was it worth it? ELAINE DUNCAN, Brodick,

Isle of Arran.

Meghan in Oz

THE negative reception to Meghan’s podcast is unfair.

Surely it would take a heart of stone not to be moved by her memories of growing up on a farm in Kansas before she was whisked away by a tornado.

I believe the next episode describes how she linked up with a man with no brain.

IAN DUCKWORTH, Rochdale, Gtr Manchester.