Wanted: a private operation to take over all of Calmac’s island routes Draconian clampdown in Hong Kong
ACCORDING to your report, the Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes, is going to investigate Calmac’s proposal relating to its freight charges to various islands (“Islanders furious as Calmac looks to raise freight charges by 300%”, November 26).
To me, this is yet another piece of deliberate malmanagement, knowing that the islands’ inhabitants and many non-islanders will react with anger and incredulity.
It is as if Calmac know that, with all of the problems with the replacement ferry plans, a ‘new’ MV Loch Nevis will be way down the priority list.
This ship will soon be 21years old. Does a plan therefore exist to do a St Kilda to the islands with smaller populations, and if there is an exodus, there is no need for a ferry service?
Alternatively, is there scope for a private operation to replace Calmac’s services to these islands?
Better still would be a private operator to take over all of Calmac’s routes. This would also mean the end of Caledonian Marine Assets Ltd., again probably no bad thing.
Good luck to Kate Forbes.
Ian Gray,
Croftamie.
THOSE of us who care about the continuing plight of Hongkongers fighting for their freedom have sadly become used to the Orwellian doublespeak of the Hong Kong authorities.
But to hear the city’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, publicly describe the national security law as being “remarkably effective in restoring stability” is as chilling as
it is factually incorrect.
Since their introduction, the national security laws have been used to brutally repress any public protest; to restrict freedoms that had previously existed; to clamp down on freedom of speech, of the press, of association and of movement; and to destroy what limited democracy had previously been permitted.
Rather than ensure stability, this brutal and draconian clampdown has only served to make Hong Kong even more unstable. Hongkongers value their freedom and won’t stop fighting for it. Although Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities may try, they cannot arrest and lock up every Hongkonger who stands up for democracy and basic human rights.
Stability can be ensured by respecting freedom and democracy, not by repressing it, and the sooner the Hong Kong authorities understand that the better. Perhaps seeing her name at the top of the list for the next
tranche of Magnitsky sanctions might help Ms Lam understand. Lord Alton of Liverpool, ViceChair of the All-party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong; Lord Shinkwin, ViceChair; Geraint Davies MP, ViceChair; Andrew Rosindell MP, Vice-chair; Tom Randall MP.
Slings and arrows
THELMA Edwards (letters, November 25) reminded me of the equally scary fire escape arrangements employed at my Scottish boarding school in the early 1950s, well before health and safety reared its head.
All the dorms were on the second floor and each was equipped with a bosun’s-sling type of escape mechanism, suspended from a contraption fixed to an inside wall close by a window .
The idea was that if the internal staircase was impassible due to fire, you put the sling on around your body under your armpits and clambered out through the open window. The mechanism was braked automatically to lower you down slowly to the ground, springloaded to return for the next escapee.
One could only hope that any fire would be slow burning; sceptics among us noted that there were flower beds beneath to cushion any falls should the braking mechanism fail. Whilst we had to test them annually for familiarity apart from anything else , fortunately they were never needed in an emergency and were soon replaced by external metal fire-escape staircases.
Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop, Ayrshire.
WHAT a tonic and respite I enjoyed from this prolonged, strange time in which we now live, when I read Thelma Edwards’ letter.
I laughed out loud as I visualised poor Thelma in the wooden box struggling to pull a lever to get her 20-year old self safely back down to “earth”. Thank you, Thelma. We could do with more letters like yours at the moment.
Irene Hambley, High Blantyre.
Nuclear winter
SHIVER me timbers. Now a “Cocklecrusher”, having recently relocated to seaside Largs, and with Hunterston Power Station in full view from my front windows, it’s a little disconcerting to read that nuclear waste is missing and that decommissioning could take up to 120 years (“Nuclear waste missing after ‘decades of failure”, November 27).
If something goes “beep” “beep” in the night, should I be worried? Or do seagulls get sore throats?
R Russell Smith,
Largs.