Dangerous model for unstable future

DaviD Lee purports to give a dispassionate account of the discussion event in the Royal Society of Edinburgh last Monday (Perspective, 31 May) but his assault on my contribution shows up his own prejudices; so readers should beware.

The debate, one in a commendable series on our constitutional future being hosted by Scotland’s National academy, was entitled “Defence and international relations”.

Given that title it was relevant and indeed important to highlight the fact that the referendum has implications well beyond Scotland. Many of Scotland’s and the United Kingdom’s friends look on with dismay at the possible break-up of one of the most significant countries in a very unstable and unpredictable world. Their concerns should not be ignored.

The Scottish people also need to take into account, when casting their vote, the start-up costs of creating a Scottish Foreign Office, a whole new diplomatic network of embassies, consulates and diplomats as well as the huge costs of building a Scottish Defence Force with all its complications. Not easy, not cheap and certainly not instant.

There are others watching as well. as i said at the RSE, there are other separatist movements staring with intense interest at what happens in the UK; they see their ambitions becoming real if the Scottish domino were to fall.

in the light of that i cannot see why Scotland’s separatists recoil at the entirely appropriate use of the word separatism, and why the word “Balkanisation” is also too potent for them. The dictionary definition of Balkanise is “divide (a region or a body) into smaller mutually hostile states or groups”. That seems to say it all. if the break-up of Britain was to become the model for tomorrow’s Europe, then our future will be bleak indeed. lord roBertson of

Port ellen (former secretary General

of nato) THE referendum debate is becoming bogged down in semantics. Few countries now have the freedom of action enjoyed by 19th centurynation states.

The UK is certainly not independent in that sense – it has to comply with European directives, it cannot deport whom it wishes, and so on. in the field of economics, globalisation affects what even the largest states may do.

What the 2014 referendum is being held to decide is whether Holyrood should have the same level of powers as Westminster.

if the answer is Yes, it would then be up to the various parties and groupings to set out the sort of polity they would seek to create – and let the voters choose. evidence, no reference to the costs to the economy (and life in general) if he happens to be wrong in his views on climate change.

In his earlier correspondence (letters, 11 May) Prof Trewavas called on Copernicus in support of his view that scientific explanations of observed phenomena can change (no-one could argue with that). However, the world continued quite comfortably while theories were batted around on how the planets revolved in space. No urgent action was necessary. on climate change, expert opinion says the opposite is true: action is necessary now.

As The Scotsman article (“Driving Towards Disaster”, 28 May) confirmed, there is clear evidence that the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world and that, without urgent action, these effects could be catastrophic and irreversible. In that context, Scotland should be proud of listening to the experts and showing leadership. We need to support that lead collectively and as individuals.

toM Ballantine

s BeCK WITH the news that this spring was the coldest for more than 50 years, surely the Met office and the BBC should be talking seriously about changing their continuous doom-laden messages of global-warming disasters, which have been believed by all our political leaders driving a farcical green agenda which has resulted in millions of Britons moving into fuel poverty.

Maybe now, after the latest news, we will see the many eminent scientists who deny that man has any major impact on climate changes being allowed their time in the limelight, instead of being shut out by the one-sided arguments the BBC in particular has supported.

let us now see television programmes which present genuine evidence, not computer models, to prove that our weather is just cyclical and will continue to produce various climate changes over the years to come.

There is still time for Prime Minister David Cameron and First Minister Alex Salmond to ignore former US vice-president