WE were saddened, though not surprised, to hear that fewer gardeners are spotting hedgehogs (Hedgehog sightings becoming rare, The National, February 6).

We have long known hedgehog numbers are in decline. Since the turn of the century numbers have dropped by around a third in urban areas and a half in rural ones.

A major factor in their decline is loss and fragmentation of habitat. We have joined forces with People’s Trust for Endangered Species on a project called Hedgehog Street, designed to help with the habitat crisis.

We ask people to create 13cm square gaps in the bottom of their boundary fences and walls to join up usable habitat, and to ask their neighbours, and their neighbours’ neighbours to do the same and so on until the whole street is accessible to hedgehogs! To date we have had more than 42,000 people sign up as “hedgehog champions”!

There are lots of simple things we can all do to help hedgehogs, that could make a massive difference. To find out more (or to sign up as a champion) see www.hedgehogstreet.org
Fay Vass
Chief executive
British Hedgehog Preservation Society

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Tories plan to use Brexit to finish Thatcher’s job

SHORTLY after the UK’s Leave vote, Margaret Thatcher’s former chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson said: “Brexit gives us the opportunity ... to finish the job that Margaret Thatcher started.”

While Scotland voted to Remain, I’m sure most of those who voted Leave in Scotland did not do so take Scotland back to the 1980s.

But with Theresa May and the Tories arrogantly suggesting they will just ignore Scotland’s position, it looks like they are planning what Nigel Lawson suggested.

Theresa May has failed to rule out opening up the NHS to private US healthcare providers as she desperately seeks a trade deal with Trump. She also suggests she might turn the UK into a tax haven by making massive tax cuts – cuts that could only come with cuts to public services.

Iain Duncan Smith’s cuts to welfare for families and the vulnerable will continue, and a Bedroom Tax Mark 2 is already being considered.

It is no longer simple Brexit but a Tory hard Brexit we all now face.

In the month of May, Scotland faces elections for its councils.

The Tories will treat them as a vote to endorse their version of Brexit. Every vote they get they will claim is a vote that means they can do what they like to Scotland and we’ll just take it.

They will be hoping that people who oppose their policies don’t turn out, so that they get a bigger share of the vote. So the only way to send them a message that people don’t want their version of Brexit is to turn out in numbers so that they cannot claim people want a return to the 1980s.
Bill Wallace
Glasgow

HAVING watched John Bercow speaking, obviously from the heart and with undoubted sincerity yesterday, I feel it is time that others do the same and call time on Trump and his odious and putrid beliefs and policies.

It sent shock waves across the stunned Tory benches and all the way to Downing Street, but it should reverberate much further; it should resonate with all sensible, tolerant and fair-minded citizens throughout the land whatever their politics, because, thankfully, Ukip and certain factions of the Tory party apart, there are citizens of this persuasion.

These citizens are getting fed up being spoon-fed Trump’s nasty and dangerous tweets, sorry, policy statements, and watching as May and her desperados stand, at best mute or at worst condoning of this madman as they have to in order to scrabble for crumbs from his trade deals table.

I would urge your excellent publication to lobby the Scottish Government to hold a full debate on this and issue a similar statement to the effect that he will not be welcome in Scotland but will be tolerated and treated with civility, ie a quick cup of tea at Bute House and stuffed back on a plane back to Londinium, where he and Theresa Maybe can walk hand in hand in the rose garden at No 10.

For those old enough to remember Lynn Anderson’s hit, the opening two lines would be very apt as they walk hand in hand: “I beg your pardon/I never promised you a rose garden”. Keep that in mind, Theresa, when you are scrabbling for scraps at Trump’s trade deals table.
Ade Hegney
Helensburgh

IS it alarming or reassuring that Britain and the United States are relying more and more on the judiciary to uphold what we refer to as democracy?

There have been several examples lately, the most notable being the referral of Article 50 to Parliament and the US judiciary’s decision on Donald of Trumpton’s ban on immigrants entering the States.

It would appear that our politicians and their advisers have lost track of their national constitutions at the highest level! I believe that government by judges is known as krytocracy.
WJ Graham
East Kilbride

SOME people don’t like street protests. That is their right.

There is, however, a strange argument doing the rounds – viz, that if you haven’t protested about any unpleasant regime that ever was, you have no right to protest now.

A specious argument in many ways (must you take part in one by age 18, or lose the right forever? If you’re ill, will a doctor’s certificate do?

Let’s not get silly).

In the USA and its head of state we have the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world”. The UK is walking hand-in-hand up the garden path (or down the rabbit hole) with a man-child who is currently tearing up the values of respect for others that form the basis of civilised behaviour. He is signing orders that will have a long-term negative impact on the environment.

Is it any wonder that, for many of us, a tipping point has been reached?

So make your choices, but don’t sneer at people who make different ones. Who knows, some day the critics of protest may find themselves moved to join us, or at least be glad that we did take to the streets and raise our voices.
Margaret McIlhinney
Address supplied

BRIAN McKenna asks “where were the petitions against the Chinese, or against the king of Saudi Arabia?” (Letters, February 6) .

Perhaps if Mr McKenna had raised those petitions himself instead of waiting for someone else to do so, we might have had the opportunity of signing them!
Andy Pearson
Address supplied