What a price we pay for “democracy”

Sir, – It is not everyTuesday that some of us find ourselves in agreement with every word written by Jim Crumley, but this week he excelled in his article. The ruination of much of Britain, in particular Scotland, is quite appalling and his thin-edge-of-thewedge argument over the ruination of Beauly is quite correct.

Once the power line was allowed, against enormous opposition and a considerable number of accurate prophecies that this was only the beginning, we were doomed.

Any sentient person is aware that Britain is going to run out of steam. The blatant refusal to think two decades ahead indicates the fatuousness of most political leaders. In the field of energy it will lead to disaster.

The love of selling off the family silver to anybody, as long as they dwell and pay taxes abroad, has already wreaked irreparable damage to our economy. When any opposition to public vandalism is allowed to be heard, then it is dismissed as nimbyism. This is grossly unfair as the objections, all over Britain, are often very soundly based.

When a local council dares to suggest the objectors may have a point and proceed to refuse planning applications it is almost invariably overruled by unelected officials in London or Edinburgh. What a price we pay for “democracy”!

We have all the fuels for not only being self-sufficient in energy but having the ability to export it. The trouble is that the energy in question is carbon-based, but any exploration of this is thought by many to be even worse than questioning immigration policy.

However, the technology is available, not only to use the carbon fuels but also to extract the toxics that are more than a potential worry. Oil companies ally with power suppliers to deny this. The Greens and other do-gooders loudly applaud from the sides.

Again, the majority of us, who are not terribly rich, subsidise, through our taxes, the very, very rich, both at home and abroad. The current popularity of the SNP would suggest that whichever way we might have voted in the referendum most of us in Scotland are in one mind on the subject of preserving our heritage. Oh that a little sense and independent thinking might be found in more of our politicians. Robert Lightband. Clepington Court, Dundee.