Defending the indefensible

MAYBE Bob Macdougall (letters, April 20) is stretching credibility to suggest that, in an independent Scotland, shipyards couldn’t contract for overseas orders.

Here are some equally bizarre extrapolations of my own: the remaining 5,000 or so BAE systems workers throughout the UK making these frigates could have been made millionaires for half the cost of the frigates so far.

The frigates in turn are being built to help protect two new aircraft carriers the UK can only ever use in distant offensive actions – assuming, that is, that the UK can ever afford enough planes of its own to fly from them to make the circumstances viable.

The F-35 Lightning planes cost £80 million a pop and are so expensive to run that the US, which makes them, are considering scrapping the $1.5 trillion project and designing a new plane.

To sum up: Westminster is building frigates to defend horrendously expensive aircraft carriers that may soon become redundant. Perhaps an independent Scotland may be better at husbanding its financial resources.

David J Crawford, Glasgow.